Director of Software

About the role

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Director of Software to join our team, reporting to the VP of R&D. This is a builder's leadership role, shaping the output and direction of our software team. Luna has developed a product that has reached clinical studies with a lean, high-performing software team. Now, at an inflection point of growth, your charter is to grow the product, the team, and the internal tools into their full commercial form. You’ll build out the software team and create an ecosystem where engineers thrive and do their best work, while diving deep technically to collaborate on new approaches to the product and how it’s developed. This role combines people management, strategic planning, creative problem solving, and driving AI-enabled workflows to deliver the best possible product.

Please note that this is an on-site role and you must live within a reasonable commuting distance of the Luna Health site in San Diego, CA.

Responsibilities

Leadership and People Management

• Define and build a software team that scales as the business grows. Establish a hiring process to build strong teams with differentiated roles.
• Interface with the executive team and board on technology issues.
• Guide career growth for engineers at every level. Defer to others’ technical authority when appropriate, but engage engineers at a deep level, earning respect as a technical collaborator.
• Create a positive, safe, and productive workspace where software talent can thrive. Understand the team’s strengths and interests. Drive efficiency constructively, collaboratively, and motivationally. Draw initiative out of talented engineers and champion their ideas.

Delivery and Execution

• Drive continuous improvement in how work flows from idea to released code. Reinforce high coding standards and efficient workflows, champion emerging AI tools, and keep the team’s overhead to a minimum so they can focus on building.
• Ensure the team is working on the right things in the right order, and course-correct when a chosen path encounters trouble.
• Represent software across the org, collaborating and negotiating scope, tradeoffs, and commitments with hardware, data science, regulatory, and executives.
• Stay technically hands-on where it counts. Prototype, review, and implement alongside the team.

Strategy and Planning

• Translate vision into plans. Operate in ambiguity, translating soft needs and ambitions into actionable strategy and ultimately an elegant product.
• Develop short-term and long-term technology roadmaps in collaboration with product management and the engineering team. Brainstorm collaboratively with executive leadership at a strategic level on technical ideas.
• Manage competing demands. Bring resourcefulness, creativity, and organization to ensure the company’s needs are met at any scale.

Requirements

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10–15+ years working in software development, including 5+ years managing technical teams.
• Experience ensuring data integrity, audit trails, and reliability for information that may bear on patient safety and regulatory scrutiny. Prior medical device or other safety-critical software experience is a strong plus.

Technical Competencies

• Experience designing and shipping mobile apps and cloud backends end to end, with the judgment to make early architectural choices that hold up as a connected-device fleet grows.
• Fluent in modern DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and automation test frameworks.
• Ability to align multi-year technology roadmaps with core business goals.
• Familiarity with frontier models, using AI for coding and as an accelerator of productivity. Able to apply safe practices in a regulated environment, ensuring human judgment is ultimately responsible and accountable.

Leadership and Soft Skills

• Proven ability to lead and grow a small, senior engineering team directly, mentoring individuals, hiring with a high bar, and building a culture where people do their best work.
• Track record of clear alignment with your team, effective cross-functional collaboration, and representing software credibly with executive leadership.
• Competency owning a team budget, allocating scarce resources, and holding delivery timelines.

Benefits

• A no-jerk policy – we seek the best and brightest talent who are fun to work with.
• Equity – we are early in this journey and you’ll be instrumental in Luna’s growth.
• Excellent health benefits – we depend on it ourselves as a team that has or cares for people with diabetes.

Physical Demands

• Sit for extended periods of time at a keyboard and mouse.
• Lift and move up to 25 lbs.
• Work in a second-story office up a flight of stairs.
• Hearing and speaking will be required regularly.
• Specific vision abilities include close and distance vision, depth perception, peripheral vision, and the ability to adjust focus.