About Kognia
Kognia is transforming football with AI-powered tactical data. We deliver automated insights directly from match video — helping elite clubs, federations, and agencies make smarter decisions and elevate performance across both first-team and the academy level.
We are moving into a phase of significant international expansion and as we scale our operations toward multiple product offerings, we are looking for our first Director of Engineering to lead, manage, and optimize our technical execution.
The Opportunity
This is a high-impact leadership hire for Kognia. You will inherit a talented team of 14 engineers, with potential for future scaling. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will be the principal owner of engineering delivery.
We are looking for a Builder-Leader: someone who is obsessed with delivery and thrives on creating structure and stability in a fast-paced environment. You bring the senior experience to manage a growing engineering department and the technical depth to translate product requirements into high-quality, predictable execution.
Role Overview & Key Responsibilities
* People Leadership: Manage and develop a 14-person engineering team — owning performance, career growth, and engineering culture.
* Organizational Design: Partner with the CTO to optimize team structure and ways of working for delivery velocity and technical excellence.
* Delivery Management: Translate the product roadmap into technical execution plans. Own the "how" and "when" of shipping reliably.
* Capacity Planning: Allocate engineering bandwidth across projects, balancing feature work against tech debt and infrastructure needs.
* Technical Partnership: Serve as Product's technical counterpart — evaluating feasibility, effort, and complexity to keep the roadmap grounded.
* Operational Excellence: Define engineering metrics (velocity, quality, reliability) and optimize development workflows.
Qualifications
* 8+ years in Software Engineering, with at least 3+ years in a leadership role (Senior EM, Director, or similar).
* Execution track record. Proven experience managing complex technical projects and delivering high-quality software on schedule.
* Scale-up Experience: Experience scaling an engineering organization — whether through direct team growth or by introducing structure (processes, team topologies, hiring frameworks) that enabled a team to scale effectively.
* Technical Depth: Strong technical background in cloud-native architectures, data-intensive products. Experience working alongside or managing AI/ML teams is a plus.
* Communication: Exceptional English communication skills. You can translate technical complexity into clear delivery updates for non-technical stakeholders.