Founding Head of Engineering - Healf Zone

Healf; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Healf is seeking a founding engineer to lead Healf Zone as the most senior engineer, setting architecture and guiding multiple pods from day one.

You will own core tech, build scalable Python backends and Next.js frontends, hire engineers, and partner with product, data, and clinical leads to turn a bold health platform into reality.

Join a fast-growing European health tech startup with founder-level ownership, equity, and the chance to shape the future of wellbeing.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience designing and building complex, data-driven products at production scale.
• Excellent Python backend engineering skills.
• Experience with Next.js or an equivalent modern frontend framework.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, data pipelines, and scalable architecture.
• Technical leadership experience across multiple teams or workstreams.
• Experience working with health, wearable, or clinical data is valuable.

Responsibilities

• Build and own the core technology powering Healf Zone end to end, including lab-testing products and patient-facing experiences.
• Set the technical direction across sensor ingestion, data fusion, knowledge graphs, scoring engines, and protocol systems.
• Hands-on development with Python backend services and Next.js frontend, shipping from day one.
• Build the team, hire engineers, and shape how the pod operates as Healf Zone scales.
• Lead across pods to ensure cohesive end-to-end products and architectures.

Skills

Founder mentality

Python backend

Next.js frontend

Distributed systems

Technical leadership

Health data experience

Tools

Next.js

Python

Cloud platforms

Data pipelines

Job description

Healf Is Europe's Fastest-growing Company.Number one on the FT1000, number one on the Sifted 100. From £1m to over £100m in under three years, with a small, talent-dense team and an electric culture with day one founder intensity. Now we're aiming for £1bn in the next three.We curate the world's best wellbeing brands across The Four Pillars™: EAT, MOVE, MIND, SLEEP. That's the first chapter.

The next chapter is harder and more interesting.We are moving from one market to many, from e-commerce to a technology platform, and from curating wellbeing to defining it. We are a health company, so we think we should act like one. At its fullest expression, Healf redefines what wellbeing means for tens of millions of people.

The Role

Healf Zone is our next big bet to truly redefine what wellbeing means for the consumer.100+ interviews told us the same thing: despite all the information out there, people stay confused and overwhelmed. The industry only makes it worse — more information, more data, more trends. But what people miss isn't another input; it's a path to clear outputs. Left to be their own expert, they weigh conflicting, self-interested advice about a biology they don't understand, with no trusted source to make the call with them. One that truly understands them, grounded in real expertise, not selling them anything. A guide.Healf Zone brings together all of a customer's data — bloods, wearables, tests, supplements, lifestyle — into clear, ongoing guidance. What to take. What to stop. What to try next. It starts with the best protocol we can build and grows into a proactive companion that holds the whole arc of someone's health and gets smarter with every loop. For once they have clarity on what to do and why, and the sense of finally being covered — someone completely trustworthy in their corner.

Very few companies can build this — it takes trust, commerce and diagnostics under one roof, and Healf has all three. The category will consolidate around whoever becomes the customer's health home first, and we intend to be it.

As the founding engineer, you'll be the most senior engineer in Healf Zone and the technical lead across every pod — the intelligence engine, diagnostics and bloods, and the companion app. You'll set the architecture and the standard the whole team builds to, and be the person ultimately accountable for turning this vision into something that works. You'll partner closely with our product and science leads, work closely with the founder and CTO, stay deeply hands-on, and grow the team around you — a genuine founding seat, with the ownership and equity that come with getting in at the start.

What You Will Do

Build and own: the core technology powering Healf Zone end to end, including lab-testing products, wearable integrations, the personalised protocol today, and the proactive wellbeing companion it grows into.

Set the technical direction: across systems such as sensor ingestion, sensor fusion, clinical knowledge graphs, product scoring, and protocol engines.

Work across the stack, hands-on: building scalable Python backend services and high-quality frontend experiences using Next.js or an equivalent modern framework - you’ll be in the code, shipping, from day one.

Build the team — hire engineers, shape how the pod works, and raise the bar as Healf Zone scales.

Lead across all pods: helping teams make strong architectural decisions and deliver cohesive end-to-end products across the Healf Zone organisation.

Partner with: product, clinical, data, and business stakeholders to identify new opportunities and translate ambitious ideas into scalable systems.

Build from the ground up: making foundational architecture decisions and creating the infrastructure, services, and customer experiences needed to bring the Healf Zone vision to life.

What We Are Looking For

A rare combination: an exceptional engineer with a real founder's instinct.

Founder Mentality

• You want to go all-in. You're looking for the thing you'll pour yourself into, your best work, not another job.
• You're energised by ambiguity and a blank page - you'd rather define the path than be handed it.
• You have extremely high-agency and want to move with speed
• Proven 0-to-1 experience: you have built meaningful products or platforms from scratch rather than inheriting established systems.

Technical Excellence:

• 7+ years of experience designing and building complex, data-driven products at production scale.
• Excellent Python backend engineering skills.
• Experience with Next.js or an equivalent modern frontend framework.
• A strong understanding of distributed systems, data pipelines, and scalable architecture.
• Technical leadership experience, including setting direction and guiding engineers across multiple teams or workstreams.
• Experience working with health, wearable, sensor, clinical, or recommendation data is highly valuable.

Nice to Have

• Experience building products in digital health, diagnostics, wellness, fitness technology, or another data-rich consumer environment.
• Familiarity with wearable, sensor, lab, biomarker, or other longitudinal health data.
• Experience designing systems such as sensor ingestion pipelines, data-fusion layers, knowledge graphs, scoring engines, or rules-based protocol systems.
• Exposure to clinical data models, health ontologies, or decision-support products.
• Familiarity with machine learning systems and how to integrate model outputs into production products, although the Platform team owns the core ML layer.
• Experience working with privacy-sensitive or regulated data, including consent, security, governance, and data-quality considerations.

The Deal

Competitive and meaningful compensation package for the right person. We ask a great deal of the people who work here. We expect full ownership and a genuine commitment to give this chapter everything you have.

In return, we will give you the same: everything we have, invested in your growth, your wellbeing, and the defining skills of the next decade.

We have built the fastest-growing company in Europe with a team small enough that every person in it shapes the outcome. That is still true today. The next person we hire will change the trajectory of the company.

If the most important work of your career is ahead of you, this is the place to do it.