Backend Engineer

About Kernel

Kernel is crazy fast, open source browser infrastructure for AI agents. We handle autoscaling, observability, and the messy details of web interaction, so developers can focus on what their agents do instead of how they do it.

Teams at Cash App, Rye, and 3000+ others use Kernel for deep research, QA automation, and real-time web analysis. We've raised $22M from Accel, YC, and Vercel.

If you're interested in building critical infrastructure for agents on the web, we'd love to chat.

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About the role

As a Backend Engineer at Kernel, you’ll architect and build the core systems that power our AI agent platform end-to-end. You’ll own critical developer-focused products from conception to production, working with bleeding edge tech that needs to be both reliable and low latency. You’ll also play a foundational role in how we build Kernel’s culture.

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What you’ll do

• Design, develop, and scale new our product suite of developer tools, CLIs, and APIs

• Set direction for critical technical surface areas, enabling us to stay ahead of rapid growth

• Shape Kernel’s hiring decisions and culture as we grow

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What we’re looking for

• Experience building extensible APIs, SDKs, and databases designed for scale and high throughput

• >=1 year of experience at a company with <50 people

• Technical excellence: we’re building core infrastructure that’s default open source. As a developer tool, our technical decisions are the product, and the details matter a lot.

• Low ego, high impact: you care more about building something meaningful than who gets credit

• Start-up ready: early stage sometimes means figuring it out as we go, and that energizes rather than drains you

• Excited to crush it: we’re moving fast and looking for people excited about high velocity, high impact work, and having fun along the way.

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What you can expect as a Kernel

• Industry-competitive salary

• Above market equity

• Premium medical + dental coverage + dependent coverage

• Small, trusting team of senior + staff engineers

• Default async with minimal bureaucracy, only one meeting a week

• $1k / mo budget for LLM usage fees #vibecheck

• Daily lunches on us

• Unlimited PTO

• 401k + company match

• Relocation assistance

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Hiring process

We have a simple process focused on real world collaboration and jointly getting to know each other:

1. 30-minute intro call with one of Kernel’s co-founders

2. 45-minute technical interview (virtual)

3. Half-day on-site (virtual or in-person) working with our team on relevant challenges.

4. Offer!​