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

About Knightscope  Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP) is a security technology company building the nation's 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