Head of Engineering

About Keycard

At Keycard, we’re building identity & access infrastructure for the agent-native era—where software isn’t static, but a dynamic, constantly changing system of AI agents working on behalf of people and businesses to complete dynamic tasks at runtime.

Our mission is to unlock the agent economy by empowering developers and enterprises with the secure, scalable foundations they need to build, deploy, adopt, and trust agentic applications. To do this, we’re building the real-time, in-band, contextual guardrails required to transition from human-driven to truly autonomous and agentic workflows that give users, builders, and security teams the confidence and control they need to bring agents out of the lab and into production.

At our core, we’re laser-focused on delivering a delightful, best-in-class developer experience that gives them the tools they need to create category-defining applications and experiences while giving platform and security teams the security, scalability, visibility, control, and enablement they need to accelerate their organizations journey to becoming agent native.

We’re a small, distributed team of repeat founders and builders, with backgrounds from Snyk, Auth0, HashiCorp, and Heroku.

Joining Keycard now means helping define not just our technology, but also the culture and company we’re building together—during a once-in-a-generation platform shift.

The Role

Keycard is seeking a Head of Engineering who is excited to build at the forefront of agent-native infrastructure from 0 -> 1 and then scale 1 -> 100 by playing a pivotal role in shaping our technical strategy and creating a company that delivers category-defining product and technology with execution excellence.

An ideal candidate can both dive-deep into technical matters as a hands-on leader translating strategic vision into actionable plans while being able to step back to think strategically and build the engineering systems we need to invest in to scale our technology, team, and delivery capacity.

You will collaborate closely with the founders, investors, and the broader team to define company strategy, guide technical and product direction, and cultivate a culture of innovation, craftsmanship, delivery, and engineering excellence while working to build a strong culture of execution across the company as a whole.

This is a unique opportunity to:

• Lead and Empower the Team — Engage deeply in technical discussions, champion collaboration, and create space for autonomy and mastery. Build a culture of high accountability and delivery where engineers consistently execute with precision, produce their best work, and continuously learn and iterate.

• Bridge Vision and Execution — Translate product vision and strategy into clear, actionable engineering roadmaps that balance near-term delivery, exceptional product experience, and long-term technical strategy. Work closely with a talented engineering team to ensure alignment, clarity, and efficient execution.

• Cultivate Engineering Systems — Partner with the founders and broader team to define our development ethos, guide strategic decision-making, and foster a culture that values collaboration, iterative delivery, and solving meaningful problems through pragmatic, scalable design. Focus on building the foundational systems that will enable us to scale.

• Evolve with the Company — Be ready to adapt your role as Keycard grows—jumping in hands-on when needed to unblock projects, create clarity, and deliver what’s required today, while also laying the groundwork for the next stage of growth. You shouldn’t be afraid to open up an editor and ship code when needed - whether it's building an agent, helping out on a project, or experimenting with the next generation of the product.

• Build the Organization — Work with founders, investors, and the team to scale both the engineering org and the company. Develop repeatable hiring processes, recruit exceptional talent, build our engineering systems and design the next phase of the organization. Continuously raise the bar across the board.

What We're Looking For:

• Proven Leadership & EQ — A leader with strong emotional intelligence who can inspire, motivate, and guide engineers through challenges with empathy. You foster a collaborative, respectful environment while holding the team to a high bar of performance and delivery.

• Organizational Builder — A track record of creating high-performing organizations that combine autonomy, mastery, and accountability. You think in systems—building processes, structures, and cultures that attract, enable, and retain exceptional talent that ships.

• Ownership Mentality — You take full responsibility for the success of the organization and company, lead through change and ambiguity, and drive consistent progress by balancing long-term vision with immediate value. You believe in enabling autonomy and self-actualization at every level of the organization.

• Technical Acumen — Deep expertise in modern cloud computing, distributed systems, developer-focused products, and scaling widely adopted infrastructure. Comfortable navigating complex technical discussions, weighing trade-offs, and ensuring we build trusted, performant software that delights through iterative delivery.

• Translation & Communication Skills — The ability to turn high-level business and product requirements into clear, actionable roadmaps that guide engineers through complex trade-offs while maintaining system cohesion. You communicate technical concepts and decisions effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• An AI-Native Leader — You actively leverage AI to improve how you and your team work, and think deeply about how AI changes the next generation of software, infrastructure, and organizations that will be built. You understand that AI will fundamentally change how systems are built and are committed to making Keycard a leader in AI-native engineering and are excited to unlock the agent economy.

Strong Candidates May Also Have:

• Experience founding or being an early leader at a startup—taking a company or major product line from concept to product launch and scaling both technology and teams.

• Proven success building engineering organizations from the ground up—whether inside a scaling company or as part of launching a new product line or software offering—including hiring, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams through multiple stages of growth.

• A career path that began as a hands-on individual contributor and grew into an engineering leader at scale, with deep experience and expertise operating at both the strategic and tactical levels.

• Strong opinions on what good software engineering looks like, grounded in proven results, paired with a prepared mind for how AI will change how we build, ship, and operate software with a plan to realize it on day 1.

• Leadership experience designing, building, and operating large-scale developer infrastructure such as observability platforms, identity systems, high-availability data storage, public-key infrastructure, or other mission-critical multi-tenant systems with tightly defined latency and availability requirements.

• Background in machine learning, at-scale data systems, and building cohesive systems that marry deterministic and non-deterministic systems together to create trusted experiences for users.

• A passion for open-source ecosystems and the strategic judgment to know what should be open versus proprietary.

What We Offer

• Build at the Frontier: Work every day at the frontier of agent-native systems — shipping, inventing, and iterating on technology that hasn’t been built before. You’ll be given huge autonomy, the opportunity to gain mastery, and the chance to work in a team that holds each other accountable to succeed.

• Truly Agent-Native Culture: At Keycard, we don’t just enable others to adopt agents — we use them ourselves to build. You’ll help shape an organization that embeds AI into its foundation as an enduring competitive advantage.

• Compensation With Upside: Market-competitive salaries and generous equity packages (4-year vest, 1-year cliff) give you the security to focus on building — and the asymmetric upside of ownership in a company chasing a category-defining mission.

• Comprehensive Benefits & Recharge: Health, dental, vision, and paramedical coverage for you and your family, plus 4 weeks vacation, 11 statutory holidays, and 1 volunteer day annually. We encourage at least 2 weeks off each year to fully recharge.

• Tools That Keep You Ahead: A new MacBook Pro, a $500 stipend for peripherals, and the best AI tools available so you can work at the forefront of agent-native workflows.

• Remote-First Flexibility: We are a remote-first team prioritizing asynchronous collaboration, with hiring focused in North and South America. Work where you’re strongest — we just want the best.

Why Join Us?

Keycard is building the fundamental unlock for the next generation of software: enabling truly secure and trusted agentic applications. Under the hood, we’re building a new identity and access control stack to take us from a world of static, user-focused, long-lived roles and credentialing to one of mixed machine & human interaction that is dynamic, contextually-scoped, and short-lived.

By joining as an early employee, you’ll have the opportunity to help curate a culture of iterative craftsmanship, disciplined design, empowerment to own meaningful problems, and consistent high-quality delivery with real impact. You’ll collaborate with the founders and investors who have championed identity, security, and developer tools from seed to scale with companies like Snyk, Auth0, and Heroku.

If you’re energized by tackling complex distributed systems and want to advance both developer productivity and security posture, with a hunger to learn, have an impact, and move quickly with determination we’d love to explore how you can help us shape the future of software.