Head of Engineering

 

Title of Role: Head of Engineering

Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid, 3 days/week onsite)
Company Stage of Funding: Seed (~$7M raised)
Office Type: Hybrid
Salary: $250,000 – $350,000 + 0.5–1%+ Equity
Visa: No visa sponsorship available

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Company Description

Our client is an early-stage healthcare AI startup building intelligent automation systems for clinical trial operations.

The company is addressing one of the largest bottlenecks in medicine: clinical trial execution. Their platform uses AI agents to automate complex site-level workflows, helping clinical research organizations accelerate trial activation, improve operational efficiency, and ultimately speed up medicine delivery.

Backed by top-tier investors including SignalFire and Define Ventures, the company has raised $7M and already has strong market traction, with over 200 clinical research sites actively using the platform.

The founding team combines deep healthcare domain expertise with strong technical execution, and the company is entering a critical growth phase where operational excellence and engineering leadership are essential.

With a lean engineering team of 4–5 engineers, this is a rare opportunity to join as the senior technical leader, directly shape engineering culture, scale systems, and help define the technical foundation through Series A and beyond.

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What You Will Do

Lead day-to-day engineering execution and sprint management

Build, mentor, and grow a high-performing engineering team

Remain hands-on with production code, PR reviews, and debugging

Own technical direction across full-stack systems

Drive architecture decisions for agentic AI systems and RAG pipelines

Establish strong engineering processes and operational rigor

Build scalable internal tooling, monitoring, and quality systems

Partner directly with the CEO on roadmap and technical strategy

Improve shipping velocity without sacrificing product quality

Lead hiring and set the technical bar for future engineering hires

Develop engineering culture focused on ownership and excellence

Help scale systems from early traction toward larger enterprise deployment

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Ideal Candidate Background

10+ years of engineering experience

Strong backend or full-stack technical depth

Prior experience scaling engineering systems and teams (1→10 or 10→100)

Combination of startup execution and larger-scale systems experience

Strong people leadership and mentorship capabilities

Hands-on coding ability (player-coach mindset)

Experience building operationally reliable production systems

Strong communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders

Comfortable operating in fast-moving early-stage environments

Willing to work hybrid onsite in San Francisco

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Preferred

Experience at top VC-backed startups

Experience scaling through Series A / Series B

TypeScript / Next.js familiarity

Experience with:

AI agents

RAG pipelines

Evaluation systems

Monitoring / alerting infrastructure

Healthcare / healthtech / clinical systems experience

Strong product intuition

Experience managing engineering teams while remaining hands-on

Educational background from strong technical programs

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Compensation and Benefits

Base salary: $250,000 – $350,000

Equity: 0.5–1%+ depending on candidate strength

Hybrid SF-based role

Direct partnership with founders

High ownership and leadership visibility

Opportunity to shape engineering org from the ground up

Clear path toward VP Engineering / CTO-level scope

Mission-driven healthcare impact

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Why Join

This is a rare opportunity to join a healthcare AI company solving one of medicine’s most important operational bottlenecks.

You’ll lead engineering at a critical inflection point, building both systems and team foundations while remaining deeply technical.

You’ll help accelerate clinical trials, improve medicine delivery timelines, and shape a company positioned to become foundational infrastructure for life sciences operations.

If you're excited by technical leadership, hands-on system building, and scaling engineering excellence inside a mission-driven AI startup, this role offers exceptional upside.