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

About Knightscope Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP) is a security technology company building the nations first Autonomous Security Force: autonomous machines, AI-driven software, and elite security professionals operating as one integrated managed service. The Company is on a mission to make the United States of America the safest country in the world. One Team. One Force.

Job Summary Knightscope is standing up a centralized Engineering Services function to support Signals, K7/Nav, H1, K5, K3, K1-family, KSOC, KEMS, and OpenExO. You will be the hands-on senior IC lead of that function, coordinating four service pillars and owning release process across the engineering organization. This is deliberately not a people-manager role while the team is small; expect to stay hands-on until the team crosses eight to ten people.

Location: ONSITE - Sunnyvale, CA

About the Role Knightscope is standing up a centralized Engineering Services function to support Signals, K7/Nav, H1, K5, K3, K1-family, KSOC, KEMS, and OpenExO. You will be the hands-on senior IC lead of that function, coordinating four service pillars and owning release process across the engineering organization. This is deliberately not a people-manager role while the team is small; expect to stay hands-on until the team crosses eight to ten people.

Key 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.

Required Qualifications

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 Have

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.

Compensation and Benefits Base Salary: $220,000 to $260,000 (DOE) Equity: Stock options Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off Location Requirement: Full-time, on-site at Sunnyvale HQ