Head of Engineering

Pipekit is hiring a Head of Engineering to own engineering leadership, people management, and execution.

Your primary job is to turn a small, talented team into a high-impact, low-friction execution engine that reaches product-market fit and then scales rapidly.

Time Zone Requirements: Between Eastern Time USA and Central European Time

What We’re Building
Pipekit is building the software infrastructure that powers modern data and AI systems. As the primary maintainers of the open-source Argo Workflows project, we advance Kubernetes-native workflow computing - pushing the performance, scalability, and reliability of distributed systems.
We work directly with some of the largest Argo users in the world, supporting mission-critical deployments at organizations like Bloomberg, Intuit, CrowdStrike, and Centrica Energy. The learning from these relationships drive upstream improvements to the runtime and help us develop our proprietary enterprise control plane.
Help us push the limits of Kubernetes-native infrastructure.

What you own
Engineering productivity, processes and execution strategy
Own delivery, quality, reliability, and focus across services + product engineering

Turn company priorities into clear plans, milestones, and shipped outcomes

Balance speed and pragmatism in a pre-PMF environment

Design lightweight execution systems that help the team ship faster with less coordination overhead

Stakeholder management for Engineering function, interfacing with Management Team, Product, Go-to-Market, etc.

Engineering org growth strategy
Full ownership of: hiring, onboarding, performance management, feedback loops, standards

Run 1:1s, address issues early, prevent “management/culture debt”

Set and enforce operating norms (communication, accountability, professionalism)

Design the org and team for where we’re going, not where we’ve been

Own interview loops, leveling, offers, and close strategy

Build a team optimized for ownership and customer impact (not bureaucracy)

Working with Product
Partner closely with the product manager and Founders to translate priorities into executable plans

Provide clear input on feasibility, trade-offs, and sequencing

Push back when scope, timelines, or priorities create execution risk

Actively shape priorities by bringing engineering perspective. Not just execute on priorities.

Ensure engineering has strong ownership, not just ticket execution.

Open source strategy
Work collaboratively with the Founders to continuously update Pipekit’s open source strategy

Own stewardship + execution of our open-source strategy (what/when/how)

Develop close relationships with key stakeholders & partners

Be a senior technical voice externally (community, partners, key users)

What success looks like (first 90 days)
Team delivers consistent weekly progress against clearly prioritized goals (visible plan, low thrash)

Every initiative has a directly responsible engineer; fewer escalations and handoffs

Lightweight planning + tracking (e.g., weekly planning, simple milestones, fast feedback loops) that increases throughput

Explicit standards for code quality, reviews, and reliability are followed

Calibrated hiring bar, active pipeline, and a repeatable interview & onboarding loops in motion

Founders trust engineering execution without needing to intervene daily

PM ↔ Eng collaboration produces realistic scopes, fewer re-plans, and faster decisions

Who you are
Senior engineering leader who has built and led high-performing startup teams

Enjoys leadership work on a small team

Credible technically to earn trust quickly across strong engineers

Strong people manager who likes leadership work (standards, coaching, hard calls)

Comfortable in ambiguity and early-stage, pre-PMF reality

Pragmatic, low ego, decisive, and direct communicator

Experienced with building open source and open-core products

This role is not a good fit for you if
You prefer stable roadmaps over evolving priorities

You default to adding process instead of simplifying

You are uncomfortable making decisions with incomplete information

You prefer purely managerial roles without technical involvement