Systems Engineer

The Systems Engineer will build, maintain, and scale the technical infrastructure that powers Kearney Creative Studio’s internal products and workflows. Working under the architectural direction of the AI Creative Director, this role translates system designs into production-grade code, ensures reliability across live environments, and extends platform capabilities as the Studio’s portfolio of tools and services grows.

This is a hands‑on engineering role. The successful candidate will operate within an established technical architecture, implementing features, resolving issues, and maintaining the health of interconnected systems. Projects and priorities will shift as the Studio identifies new bottlenecks and opportunities; the role requires someone comfortable moving between different problem spaces and codebases as directed.

Key Responsibilities

Build and Maintain Automation Systems

• Develop, test, and deploy automation workflows and integrations as specified by the AI Creative Director.
• Implement API connections between internal platforms, cloud services, and third‑party tools.
• Write and maintain webhook handlers, scheduled jobs, and error‑handling logic to ensure system reliability.
• Monitor system health, diagnose failures, and implement fixes with minimal downtime.

Platform and Infrastructure Support

• Manage and extend cloud‑hosted services, including deployment pipelines, environment configuration, and access controls.
• Maintain database and storage layers for data persistence, retrieval, and search operations.
• Support messaging and notification integrations across internal communication platforms.
• Ensure all systems operate within Kearney’s governance framework, maintaining audit trails and compliance documentation.

API Development and Integration

• Build and maintain API connections (REST, GraphQL) to internal and external platforms.
• Implement authentication flows (OAuth 2.0, SSO, API key management) across integrations.
• Develop data transformation and validation layers to ensure clean data flow between systems.

Document and File Processing

• Build and maintain automated pipelines for document generation and manipulation across common enterprise formats.
• Implement file handling workflows including upload, retrieval, versioning, and metadata management.

Cross‑functional Engineering Support

• Provide engineering support to other teams and functions as required, particularly where the Studio’s technical stack intersects with wider platform builds.
• Collaborate with internal engineering and IT teams on shared infrastructure projects.

Testing, Documentation, and Handover

• Write clear technical documentation for all systems, covering architecture decisions, configuration, and operational runbooks.
• Build and maintain test coverage for critical workflows.
• Contribute to internal knowledge bases so that systems can be understood and supported by the wider team.

Technical Requirements

• Experience building and consuming REST and GraphQL APIs.
• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (Microsoft Azure preferred).
• Experience with authentication and identity management (OAuth 2.0, SSO, service accounts).
• Familiarity with relational databases and data storage patterns.
• Comfortable working in Linux environments and with CLI tooling.
• Experience with version control (Git) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong debugging and problem‑solving skills across distributed systems.
• Experience with workflow orchestration or automation platforms.
• Exposure to API‑based integrations with third‑party AI services.
• Experience with messaging platform development (bots, notifications, webhooks).
• Familiarity with document format manipulation (XML‑based office formats).
• Experience working within enterprise governance and IT approval frameworks.

Working Style and Environment

This role sits within a small, high‑output team where autonomy and reliability matter more than seniority. The Systems Engineer will receive architectural direction and system specifications from the AI Creative Director, then own the implementation end‑to‑end. Projects will vary; the Studio builds and operates a range of tools and services, and the Systems Engineer will move between them based on where the need is greatest.

The environment is fast‑moving and hands‑on. The ideal candidate is someone who ships working systems, documents what they build, and flags problems early rather than waiting for them to escalate.

The team operates across London, Dubai, and other global offices. Comfort with asynchronous collaboration, clear written communication, and working across time zones is important.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 Days

• Onboarded to the technical stack, governance processes, and active systems.
• Independently resolving issues and deploying minor enhancements without supervision.
• Completed at least one end‑to‑end feature build from specification to production.

First 6 Months

• Owning day‑to‑day maintenance and monitoring of live systems.
• Contributing to new builds with increasing independence.
• Technical documentation up to date and usable by non‑engineering team members.
• Trusted by the wider team as the go‑to for system reliability and integration questions.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for someone with 3–6 years of professional engineering experience, ideally with exposure to enterprise or agency environments where they have built and maintained systems that other teams depend on. A formal computer science degree is welcome but not required; what matters is demonstrable experience shipping and maintaining production systems.

The right person is methodical, takes pride in clean code and clear documentation, and is comfortable operating in a creative environment where requirements evolve and priorities shift. They understand that governance and reliability are not obstacles to speed but enablers of it.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Non‑Discrimination

Kearney prides itself on providing a culture that allows employees to bring their best selves to work every day. Our people can feel comfortable, confident, and joyful to do great things for our firm, our colleagues, and our clients. That’s why Kearney is committed to building a diverse, unbiased, and inclusive workforce. Kearney is an equal opportunity employer; we recruit, hire, train, promote, develop, and provide other conditions of employment without regard to a person’s gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, disability, marital status, pregnancy status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other differences consistent with applicable laws. This includes providing reasonable accommodation for disabilities or religious beliefs and practices. Members of communities historically underrepresented in consulting are encouraged to apply.