Tech Lead

Kano World builds creative software empowering all young people to create, and share their creativity. Kano World has thousands of users around the world creating, learning, playing.

As a part of Kano Computing, Kano World amassed over 1.4 million creations and remixes shared. Now, Kano World is striking out on its own, funded and supported by Kano Computing to grow and change the world by empowering a community of creative young people to envision and build a better future. To engage young people in creative, not just consumptive technology and media.

We’re just getting started. We’re looking for a Tech Lead to found the new engineering team and lead on the product and technology. You’ll be joining the CEO, Ollie Dotsch who comes from Kano Computing where he was the Head of Sales and Education Lead. We’re supported by the wider Kano Computing team to transfer over the product architecture, and you’ll have opportunities to learn from and with this wider team.

Ideal candidates will come from places that deeply value design thinking, work hard to maximise platform engagement and frequently deploy to users. We’re looking for an action-oriented and entrepreneurial mindset to own the technology and work at pace - taking on the legacy from Kano Computing and growing it to the next level.

The Role

• Tech lead across the front and back end, working closely with the CEO and across the business to define and deliver product development
• Key early stage hire and core part of the team working at pace to steer the future of Kano World
• Build and integrate web components, apps and experiences, championing visual perfection in all UI to take Kano World to its next stage of user and product growth
• Growing and leading an engineering team as the business grows, acting as the lead on all of our technology and fostering the engineering culture at the company

The Values

We’re kids at heart. And kids need TLC.

We tinker - We think and create. Play and hack. Learn by doing. Explore, remix and iterate.

We lead - We’re bold. Fearless. Take responsibility and own it. Pave the way forward with ideas and execution. We deliver. Guiding others with humility. Listening carefully and speaking wisely.

We collaborate - We work together. With respect for all - inside and outside the building. Communicating constantly. Learning from each other. Give and get feedback. Expressing gratitude. Inspiring and being inspired by all.

Requirements

The Requirements

• You have strong experience building web apps with modern technologies, especially React with Typescript (and: JavaScript, MV* frameworks, HTML5, CSS3)
• You have at least 6 years commercial experience as a developer. Bonus points if you have worked on consumer subscription products and are familiar with these dynamics
• You’re a solid vanilla JavaScript developer and have built elegant UI on top of REST APIs
• You like writing modular code with a focus on reuse and you have a track record delivering performant code

The Nice to haves

• Experience with writing in Typescript/Javascript for deployment. We use Kubernetes with a Postgres database (We have a third-party support partner here, but experience in this area will be very useful)
• You’re comfortable with build systems like Jenkins and Azure Devops
• You have experience with a test framework (we use Mocha)
• Experience with a mobile framework like Cordova, Ionic, or React Native; or with a desktop wrapper like Electron

Benefits

The Benefits

• Salary: £55,000 - £80,000
• You will be part of the company’s Stock Option plan, with the ability to balance options to pay as best suit you
• Pension Plan - 3% from us
• Private health care
• We do everything we can to look after our people and allow them to work flexibly - if it works for you, it works for us too
• Informal, friendly and collaborative office environment, available if you want to work there, currently incubated by Kano Computing in Spitalfields
• We are committed to internal promotion and investing in individual and team development