Head of Engineering

About The Role

Gaia is a consumer health company re-defining our experience with medicine across the whole stack. We have created technological breakthroughs in drug delivery technology that enable once monthly controlled-release of medicines rather than needing daily pills, and alongside this we're building a tech platform for personalized medicine. Gaia is hiring a founding Head of Engineering to build the technical backbone of the system that enables personalized medicine. You'll design and build our platform — the patient and physician experiences, the data infrastructure, and the integrations that connect our products to the broader healthcare ecosystem — and hire the team that grows it with you. We believe in building things the right way: patient trust comes first, compliance is architecture rather than paperwork, and the systems we ship deserve the same craft as the medicine they support.

What You'll Own

• The platform: backend, data infrastructure, and patient- and physician-facing web and app experiences, built hands-on
• Integrations with our pharmacy, clinical, diagnostic, and wearable partners — each one expanding what our platform can do for patients
• HIPAA-first compliance architecture and the company's standards for safe, effective AI
• Hiring and leading the engineering team, setting the engineering culture from day one
• Deep partnership with our product lead and design team — interface quality is an engineering concern here
• Championing AI-native ways of working across the company

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of engineering experience, including leading engineers, and the hands-on range to architect and build across the stack today
• Production experience with sensitive or regulated data, and third-party integrations that held up in the real world
• A record of shipping fast in zero-to-one environments while making deliberate build-vs-buy and technical-debt decisions
• Product sensibility, genuine collaboration with design, and clear written communication
• Self-awareness, low ego, and the instinct to bring in experts early
• Preferred: Healthcare experience (FHIR, e-prescribing, telehealth, wearables) and shipped AI/LLM features are a plus — patient-trust instincts are a must

Building Gaia

Like our products, we are building Gaia by design. The quality of the company should match the ambition of the science. At this stage, hiring is one of the most consequential forms of company design. Every person who joins Gaia will shape what we build, how we build it, and what it feels like to work here. We look for people who care deeply about the quality of their work and the people they build alongside. People who move with urgency without lowering the bar, who are ambitious without losing their humanity, and who want their work to matter beyond the next milestone. We want to build a company that can last for hundreds of years and make life better for the generations that follow. We're assembling our founding team in San Francisco. The people who join now will help launch our first product in late 2027, prove an entirely new model of care, and define what Gaia becomes.

Compensation & Benefits

We want Gaia to be a place where people can do the best work of their lives, and we take seriously our responsibility to support the people doing it. The salary range for this role is included in the posting. We take a thoughtful and consistent approach to compensation, using market data, the scope of the role, and internal benchmarks to make equitable offers. Once you join Gaia, we reward both what you accomplish and how you work, and we believe outsized impact should create outsized growth and opportunity. Every offer also includes meaningful equity ownership so that the people building Gaia share in the value they help create.

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance with HSA and FSA options
• One Medical membership, 24/7 virtual care, and mental health support
• Unlimited paid time off, company holidays, and sick time
• $1,000 annual learning and development stipend to invest in your continued growth
• $300 twice-yearly stipend to take a day for yourself and do something that restores your time, energy, or attention
• Pre-tax commuter benefits for transit and parking
• Company-paid life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage
• Pregnancy and family support benefits
• Pet care benefits covering routine care for up to five pets

Benefits are available to eligible employees and dependents. Coverage and program details vary by plan.