SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Kin Insurance is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead a full-stack engineering team building distributed, API-first systems on AWS. This is a player-coach role at a pivotal moment in the company's evolution—Kin is transitioning from monolithic systems toward modular, distributed services while maintaining rapid product delivery.
You will lead and develop a high-performing full-stack team (front-end and back-end), fostering ownership, accountability, and continuous growth. As a hands-on leader, you'll contribute meaningful production code while setting technical direction and driving delivery of roadmap initiatives from concept through production with predictable, high-quality execution.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading a full-stack engineering team with focus on ownership and accountability
- Serving as a player-coach, contributing production code while guiding technical strategy
- Championing API-first design and schema-first development practices (OpenAPI/Swagger, contract testing, interface-driven development)
- Guiding decomposition of monolithic systems into modular, distributed services with clear ownership boundaries
- Establishing best practices for observability, resilience, and distributed communication (tracing, retries, idempotency, error handling)
- Leading architectural discussions to ensure long-term maintainability, reliability, and performance
- Partnering cross-functionally with Product, PMO, and other engineering teams to align technical strategy with business priorities
- Participating in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring to strengthen the engineering organization
Success in the first 6–12 months means your team consistently delivers roadmap initiatives with improved predictability and quality, core services are redesigned toward modular API-first architectures, engineering best practices for observability and reliability are adopted across your team, and engineers demonstrate measurable growth in technical capability and ownership.
Kin is a remote-first, profitable fintech company founded in 2016, focused on making homeowners insurance simpler and more affordable. The company has been recognized by Built In Chicago, Forbes, Inc. 5000, and Great Places to Work. Kin operates in 13 states and has a disciplined approach to growth with strong unit economics and customer satisfaction.
Requirements:
- Minimum 8 years of hands-on software development experience with strong computer science fundamentals
- Proven experience managing or leading a team of engineers in a fast-paced environment
- Demonstrated success acting as a player-coach who contributes meaningfully to the codebase
- Experience building distributed systems and decomposing monoliths into modular services
- Hands-on experience with API-first and schema-first workflows (OpenAPI/Swagger, contract testing, interface-driven development)
- Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, message queues/brokers, and distributed system design patterns
- Ability to design systems with clear service ownership, reliability, and modularity
- Excellent command of the full SDLC: analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and support
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to convey complex technical concepts clearly
Nice to have:
- Experience with modern JavaScript frameworks (React, Angular, or Vue)
- Familiarity with BI or big-data technologies such as Looker or BigTable
- Experience with Ruby on Rails or similar backend frameworks
- Exposure to regulated industries such as insurance or financial services
Note: Kin is unable to sponsor employment visas for this role. Candidates must be able to live and work full-time in one of the eligible US states (or Ontario if in Canada).
