Engineering Services Lead / Release Manager (Hands-On IC)

Knightscope•Sunnyvale, CA

4d•$220,000 - $260,000•Onsite

About The Position

Knightscope is establishing a centralized Engineering Services function to support various product lines including Signals, K7/Nav, H1, K5, K3, K1-family, KSOC, KEMS, and OpenExO. The role involves being a hands-on senior individual contributor (IC) leading this function. The primary responsibilities include coordinating four service pillars and overseeing the release process for the entire engineering organization. This is not a people-management role initially, with the expectation to remain hands-on until the team grows to eight to ten people.

Requirements

10+ years in engineering, including staff or principal-level release management or platform leadership.
Experience running release process across multiple programs simultaneously.
Comfort operating as a hands-on IC rather than a people-manager.
Strong systems thinking and cross-team facilitation skills.
Track record standing up new engineering functions.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience in a Center of Engineering Excellence or engineering standards council.
IoT, robotics, or connected-device release management.
Experience with SOC 2 or comparable regulated environments.

Responsibilities

Own release process across the engineering organization: Signals, K7/Nav, and Legacy.
Coordinate the four Engineering Services pillars: DevOps and Platform, Security and Compliance, MLOps, Fleet and Release Automation.
Arbitrate priorities across programs when shared-platform resources are constrained.
Serve on the Center of Engineering Excellence council with program leads and the Signals Senior Architect.
Establish and maintain Engineering Services standards, tooling, and SDLC practices.