Founding Principal Engineer

Founding Principal Engineer

Our client, a growing Healthtech organization, is hiring a Founding Principal Engineer to join their team in New York City. The successful candidate will lead the company’s next phase of technical development, from shaping the technical strategy, building critical platform capabilities and guiding a distributed engineering team.

Responsibilities

• Shape the technical roadmap and architecture for telehealth services, electronic health records, clinician onboarding and patient-facing applications.

• Develop production software and tackle the platform’s most demanding technical challenges.

• Assess whether to build solutions internally, purchase existing products or engage external partners.

• Lead and mentor offshore engineers, setting clear priorities and ensuring consistent delivery.

• Introduce engineering standards for code reviews, testing, deployments, on-call support and incident management.

• Ensure platform reliability and data security, with engineering practices that support HIPAA compliance and payer requirements.

• Drive practical AI adoption across clinical, operational and engineering processes.

• Develop and refine the technology stack, currently using TypeScript, Node.js, React and AWS.

• Collaborate with clinical, growth and operations teams to turn business requirements into clear technical delivery plans.

• Hire and onboard US-based engineers, shaping the team’s structure, working practices and culture as the company grows.

• Skillset

• At least 8 years’ experience developing production software, including time in a Staff or Principal Engineer role.

• Strong full-stack engineering skills, covering database design, backend services and user interfaces.

• Proven ability to define architecture and deliver complex systems from initial design through to production.

• Experience leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on with development.

• A track record of raising engineering standards, mentoring developers and improving software quality.

• Experience working effectively with distributed or offshore engineering teams.

• Experience building software in regulated environments or systems with demanding reliability and data protection requirements.

• Sound technical judgement around security, reliability and data integrity, with healthcare experience an advantage.

• Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities and deliver within a growing organisation.

• Strong communication skills, with confidence engaging senior leaders and explaining technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders.

Benefits

• Salary: $200k – $240k.

• Equity.