Kinobi AI is a Singapore-based company dedicated to transforming higher education by helping universities go beyond just academics. We focus on holistic student success, leveraging AI-powered solutions to ensure that students are well-prepared for their careers. We're looking for individuals who share our vision and want to make a meaningful impact in the future of education.
Our purpose is to:
Empower institutions to guide their beneficiaries toward meaningful employment opportunities through AI-driven solutions
Demonstrate to the world that a global AI-powered B2B SaaS enterprise can be successfully built from Southeast Asia
About the role
This role exists to raise the engineering bar.
As a Tech Lead / Engineering Manager (AI Product Engineering) at Kinobi AI, you will play a hands-on, builder-first leadership role at a critical stage of our growth. You will work with a small team of engineers (5 initially), personally owning technical decisions and system quality while actively supporting and elevating the engineers around you.
This is a player-coach role. You will spend a significant portion of your time designing and building production systems, while also acting as the architectural and delivery reference point for the team. You will partner closely with the CTO and Product team to turn messy, high-variability enterprise requirements into stable, scalable, and evolvable systems — without sacrificing delivery momentum.
Key Responsibilities
Personally design, build, and maintain core parts of the product and platform (hands-on contribution is expected)
Act as the technical and architectural referee for new features, enterprise customizations, and AI-enabled capabilities
Translate ambiguous product, customer, and AI feature requirements into clear technical designs and delivery plans
Make pragmatic architectural decisions that balance delivery speed, system coherence, and long-term extensibility
Review system designs, PRs, and refactors with a focus on reducing complexity and making trade-offs explicit
Protect the system from excessive customer-specific logic by defaulting to configuration, policy, and composition
Actively surface risks, constraints, and second-order effects to Product, Sales, and Leadership early
Push back on shortcuts that create long-term fragility, and propose viable alternatives that preserve velocity
Mentor and support engineers through design reviews, pairing, and day-to-day technical guidance
Improve team decision quality by modeling clear thinking, documentation, and disciplined execution
Introduce lightweight processes and standards only when they clearly improve delivery outcomes
Communicate progress, trade-offs, and technical health clearly to the CTO and other stakeholders
As the team scales, take on increasing people leadership responsibilities (scope dependent on experience and growth)
Must Have
5–8+ years of experience as a Software Engineer, operating at Senior, Staff, or Tech Lead level
Strong hands-on experience building and evolving production B2B SaaS systems
Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous, enterprise-driven requirements into clean, reusable abstractions
Strong architectural judgment — able to choose appropriate solutions without over-engineering
Experience reviewing and shaping other engineers’ work to raise overall system quality
Solid understanding of system design, APIs, data models, and permissions/workflows in complex products
Comfortable operating in environments with ambiguity, changing requirements, and real delivery pressure
Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, especially when explaining trade-offs
Experience integrating AI/ML or LLM-based features into production systems
Experience designing configurable workflows, policy layers, or enterprise-grade extensibility mechanisms
Prior experience acting as a Tech Lead or player-coach Engineering Manager in small teams
Experience working closely with Product and customer-facing teams in enterprise contexts
Experience working with remote or cross-country engineering teams
Work on a meaningful, AI-powered B2B product that is actively used by universities across Southeast Asia and beyond
Play a critical role in shaping the technical foundation and engineering culture of the company
Join a team where engineering judgment, system integrity, and long-term thinking are genuinely valued
Get real ownership — not just over code, but over how the product and team evolve
Work closely with founders who care deeply about building with clarity, discipline, and purpose
This role may be titled Tech Lead or Engineering Manager (Player-Coach) depending on experience; expectations remain the same
All interviews and communication will be conducted in English
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted