Engineering Manager, Identity Verification

Your Title: Engineering Manager, IDV Your Location: Hybrid - Edison, NJ HQ YouReport to: SVP of Engineering and Chief Architect Compensation: $180,000 or more depending upon experience At 1Kosmos, we are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead technical execution across our IdentityVerification (IDV) feature line. This is for someone who stays close to the code, brings sound technical judgment, and turns product requirements into secure, scalable, and shippable solutions. You will guide a distributed team of 4-6 engineers based in India while working closely with Product and the Head of Engineering from our Iselin office. This is a hands-on technical leadership role: you willset architectural direction, make design decisions, remove delivery blockers, uphold release quality, and step into the codebase when the team or situation calls for it. You bring an "always sleeveless" mindset: no issue is too small to investigate, no production incident is beneath you, and no architectural decision should be made without understanding the system that exists today. What you will own: • Steer architecture and design: Understand the existing IDV platform deeply and guide the team toward technically sound designs that align with current capabilities and the longer-term architectural direction. • Turn product needs into executable engineering work: Partner with Product early to shape requirements, clarify trade-offs, sequence work, and translate feature requests into practical, well-defined engineering plans. • Own IDV delivery: Keep incoming work organized, priorities clear, dependencies visible, and commitments on track across the IDV feature line. • Lead through technical credibility: Participate actively in design discussions, code reviews, debugging, and technical problem-solving. Step into the codebase and contribute directly when needed to validate an approach, unblock a critical effort, or resolve a production issue. • Set the release-quality bar: Establish and uphold standards for design review, code quality, test readiness, performance, security, and release decisions. • Own production outcomes: Participate directly in incident response, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions for IDV services. • Build secure, reliable systems: Drive sound engineering decisions across Node.js microservices, cloud-based SaaS deployments, Kubernetes, AWS, observability, performance, and platform resilience. • Guide and unblock the team: Provide daily technical direction, remove obstacles, facilitate effective delivery discussions, and help engineers make good decisions without becoming a status-only manager. • Bring a point of view: Make timely, well-reasoned technical decisions amid ambiguity, clearly communicate trade-offs, and constructively challenge approaches when needed. • Foster collaborative execution: Work closely with Product, QA, and engineering peers to create a low-ego environment where ownership, rigor, and delivery matter. What you bring: • 10+ years of software engineering experience, including recent experience guiding technical delivery and engineering teams in a hands-on capacity. • Proven hands-on technical leadership: Able to lead by example through architecture, code reviews, debugging, technical decision-making, and direct contribution when a critical need arises. • Sound technical judgment: You form an informed point of view, explain trade-offs clearly, and make decisions when the answer is not obvious. • Demonstrated delivery leadership: Experience organizing engineering work, identifying dependencies and risks, unblocking teams, and delivering quality capabilities predictably. • Strong quality and operational rigor: Experience with design and code reviews, automated testing, observability, incident response, root-cause analysis, and release readiness. • Security-first mindset: Practical understanding of secure software development, data boundaries, platform security, and performance considerations in enterprise SaaS. • Collaborative technical leadership: Ability to influence through technical depth, clarity, and follow-through while working effectively 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. Technical Skills: • Programming Stack: Node.js / JavaScript / TypeScript - Deep, practical experience building, debugging, reviewing, and supporting production Node.js services. Node.js is the primary language across our microservices environment. • Java and Go: Working knowledge of Java and Go is secondary but not mandatory. • Microservices and distributed systems: Strong experience with service-oriented architecture, API design, inter-service communication, resiliency patterns, scalability, and performance. • Cloud-based SaaS platforms: Demonstrated experience building and operating secure, scalable, multi-tenant SaaS platforms. • Cloud Stack: AWS, GCP, Azure - 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. • CI/CD and release engineering: Experience with automated build, test, deployment, and rollback practices that support predictable and reliable releases. • Secure software development: Experience with secure API design, authentication and authorization concepts, secrets management, data protection, vulnerability remediation, and security-focused code reviews. • Performance engineering: Experience diagnosing and improving latency, throughput, scalability, and reliability in high-volume distributed systems. Who thrives here: • Builders who stay close to real technical problems and lead by example. • Engineers who form a clear point of view, make informed decisions, and take responsibility for outcomes. • Problem solvers who can move between architecture, delivery details, debugging, and production incidents. • Pragmatic collaborators who understand existing systems before proposing change. • People energized by security, performance, reliability, and protecting users from identity fraud. • Leaders who earn trust through technical credibility, clarity, and follow-through. What we offer • Opportunity to build and lead a critical function at a high-growth Series B startup • Competitive salary and equity package • Health, dental, and vision insurance • Unlimited PTO Policy • Collaborative, fast-paced culture where your impact is immediate and visible