Abrar Admin

Kaiko Systems GmbH

<div><p>Kaiko Systems is a Berlin-based maritime technology company making global shipping safer and smarter. Our AI-powered platform helps shipping companies digitalize vessel inspections, compliance, and fleet health, and is trusted by 40+ customers worldwide. In 2026 we joined forces with UniSea, a leading Norwegian maritime software provider, combining startup pace with the strength of an international group.</p>
<p>
We are now looking for a Tech Lead to run our Berlin engineering team day-to-day: a hands-on engineer who prototypes the hard problems, allocates the right people to the right work, mentors the team, and turns architectural direction from our CTO and VP Engineering into a plan the team can execute on. You will report directly to the CTO.</p>
<h2 class="jobSectionHeader"><b>
Tasks</b></h2>
<ul><li>Prototype the hard problems yourself. When product direction is unclear, you write the spike: small, ugly, fast, built to surface the real complexity. You hand the load-bearing core to the team, stay in the loop while they scale it, and defend the architectural choices that came out of the prototype.</li>
<li>Run the team day-to-day: standups, 1:1s, performance conversations, hiring loops, the engineering side of the on-call rotation. You set the cadence and the cadence holds.</li>
<li>Allocate engineers to projects based on real knowledge of their strengths, weaknesses, and where they need to grow. You make those calls and you defend them.</li>
<li>Mentor and grow people. Give hard feedback the day it is relevant, not at review season. Spot the engineer who is stuck and unstuck them.</li>
<li>Extract architectural guidance from the CTO and VP Engineering and turn it into a plan the team can execute on. Architectural decisions sit with them; landing those decisions sits with you.</li>
<li>Stay hands-on: write production code, review the hard MRs, defend simplicity over premature abstraction, push back on shipping blockers.</li>
<li>Continuously improve how we work &mdash; engineering process, tools, standards &mdash; as we grow within the UniSea Group.</li>
</ul><h2 class="jobSectionHeader"><b>Requirements</b></h2>
<ul><li>2&ndash;5+ years leading or managing a team of engineers; you have hired, mentored, given hard feedback, and made calls that did not work and learned from them. Depth matters more than years.</li>
<li>Engineer first in your identity. You enjoy the code, you read other people's code, and you have strong, defendable opinions on language and framework choice, testing posture, and abstraction level.</li>
<li>Genuinely hands-on. Strong on at least one of: Python / Django, TypeScript / React, infra (Docker / Postgres / cloud). Comfortable reading the others. You can still write production code today.</li>
<li>Earned soft skills. You can disagree with senior people and have them think more of you afterward. You can give an engineer feedback that lands. You can read a room.</li>
<li>Real track record of growing people. You can name engineers who grew under you, what they grew into, and what you did to help.</li>
<li>Resource-allocation instinct based on real knowledge of people, not a spreadsheet.</li>
<li>Rapid-prototyping reflex. When you do not know how hard a piece of work is, your instinct is to write code, not to schedule a meeting.</li>
<li>Production-grade taste. You know the difference between a spike and a shippable system, and you build prototypes that can grow into the real thing without a full rewrite.</li>
<li>Fluent English. German is not required.</li>
<li>Based in Berlin or willing to relocate. Flexible on office attendance, but close enough that &quot;hey, let's meet tomorrow&quot; actually works.</li>
</ul>
<p>Nice to have</p>
<ul>
<li>Maritime, logistics, or other physical-world-meets-software domains.</li>
<li>Computer-vision or LLM-agent product experience.</li>
<li>Experience at profitable or capital-efficient companies; we are not a &quot;raise and burn&quot; shop.</li>
</ul><h2 class="jobSectionHeader"><b>Benefits</b></h2>
<ul><li>Real ownership of a ~10-engineer team shipping to global shipping operators.</li>
<li>A codebase that does serious work: AI on the customer path, offline PWA syncing event-sourced state from on-vessel installations, computer-vision pipelines on production traffic.</li>
<li>The stability of an international group (UniSea) combined with the speed and ownership of a startup.</li>
<li>Direct exposure to the CTO and CEO; in the room for the calls that matter.</li>
<li>A diverse, international team of maritime experts, engineers, and commercial talent.</li>
<li>Central Berlin office at M&uuml;nzstra&szlig;e (Mitte).</li>
<li>Competitive salary, meaningful equity, modern equipment.</li>
<li>Regular team events, offsites, and a culture that takes itself seriously without being stiff.</li>
</ul>
<p>We would love to hear from you. Send us your CV plus a short paragraph telling us: (a) the hardest team-management call you have made, (b) a project where you prototyped something and handed it off, and (c) an engineer who grew under you and what they are doing now.</p>
<p>
Our process is fast and respectful of your time: an intro call with the VP Engineering or CTO, a deep technical conversation with the CTO, two team conversations with senior engineers, and a final chat with the CEO. You will hear back from us within a few days at every stage.</p></div>

Tech Lead (m/f/d)

Join Kaiko Systems GmbH and explore 1   exciting career opportunities. They're hiring for various roles with options for remote or on-site work. Apply today and become part of their innovative team.

Kaiko Systems GmbH

About Company

Tech Lead (m/f/d)