Engineering Manager, Identity Verification

1Kosmos•Edison, NJ

9h•Hybrid

About The Position

1Kosmos is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead technical execution for its Identity Verification (IDV) feature line. This hands-on technical leadership role guides a distributed team of 4–6 engineers based in India and works closely with Product and engineering leadership from the Iselin office. The manager sets architectural direction, makes design decisions, removes delivery blockers, upholds release quality, and contributes directly to the codebase when needed. The position is hybrid, based at the company’s Edison, New Jersey headquarters, with work from Iselin, New Jersey required three days per week and meaningful working overlap with the India-based team. The Engineering Manager will develop a deep understanding of the existing IDV platform and guide technically sound designs aligned with current capabilities and longer-term architecture. They will partner with Product to shape requirements, clarify trade-offs, sequence work, and create practical engineering plans; organize priorities and dependencies; and lead delivery across the IDV feature line. They will participate in design discussions, code reviews, debugging, and technical problem-solving, contributing directly when needed to validate an approach, unblock work, or address production issues. The role establishes and maintains standards for design review, code quality, test readiness, performance, security, and release decisions. It also owns production outcomes through incident response, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions. The manager drives secure and reliable engineering across Node.js microservices, cloud-based SaaS deployments, Kubernetes, AWS, observability, performance, and platform resilience, while providing daily technical direction and fostering effective collaboration with Product, QA, and engineering peers. The company describes its environment as a high-growth Series B startup with a collaborative, fast-paced culture and an opportunity to build and lead a critical function. Compensation is $180,000 or more depending on experience, with a competitive salary and equity package.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience, including recent hands-on experience guiding technical delivery and engineering teams.
Practical experience building, debugging, reviewing, and supporting production Node.js services; Node.js is the primary language in the microservices environment.
Ability to lead by example through architecture, code reviews, debugging, technical decision-making, and direct contribution when needed.
Sound technical judgment, including the ability to explain trade-offs and make decisions amid ambiguity.
Experience organizing engineering work, identifying dependencies and risks, unblocking teams, and delivering quality capabilities predictably.
Experience with design and code reviews, automated testing, observability, incident response, root-cause analysis, and release readiness.
Practical understanding of secure software development, data boundaries, platform security, and performance considerations in enterprise SaaS.
Ability to influence through technical depth, clarity, and follow-through across US- and India-based teams.
Willingness to work from Iselin, NJ three days per week and maintain meaningful working overlap with the India-based IDV engineering team.
Deep, practical experience with Node.js, JavaScript, and TypeScript.
Strong experience with service-oriented architecture, API design, inter-service communication, resiliency patterns, scalability, and performance.
Demonstrated experience building and operating secure, scalable, multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
Strong working knowledge of AWS services, cloud deployment patterns, security, monitoring, reliability, and cost-aware operational practices.
Hands-on experience with containerized workloads, Docker, Kubernetes, deployment practices, and operational troubleshooting.
Experience with automated build, test, deployment, and rollback practices that support predictable, reliable releases.
Experience with secure API design, authentication and authorization concepts, secrets management, data protection, vulnerability remediation, and security-focused code reviews.
Experience diagnosing and improving latency, throughput, scalability, and reliability in high-volume distributed systems.

Nice To Haves

Working knowledge of Java and Go; these languages are secondary and not mandatory.
Experience with GCP or Azure cloud services.

Responsibilities

Guide architecture and design for the existing IDV platform and align decisions with its longer-term architectural direction.
Partner with Product to shape requirements, clarify trade-offs, sequence work, and translate feature requests into engineering plans.
Organize and own IDV delivery, keeping work, priorities, dependencies, and commitments clear and on track.
Participate in design discussions, code reviews, debugging, and technical problem-solving, and contribute directly to the codebase when needed.
Establish and uphold standards for design review, code quality, test readiness, performance, security, and release decisions.
Participate directly in incident response, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions for IDV services.
Drive sound engineering decisions across Node.js microservices, cloud SaaS deployments, Kubernetes, AWS, observability, performance, and platform resilience.
Provide daily technical direction, remove obstacles, facilitate delivery discussions, and help engineers make informed decisions.
Make timely technical decisions, communicate trade-offs, and constructively challenge approaches when appropriate.
Collaborate with Product, QA, and engineering peers to foster ownership, rigor, and delivery.
Guide a distributed team of 4–6 engineers based in India and maintain meaningful working overlap with them.