Director of Engineering

Pennant Services, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Pennant Group is seeking an experienced Director of Engineering to lead the Application Development team that builds products for our post‑acute businesses. You will shape architecture, delivery systems, and an AI-native engineering practice, guiding a small team to perform like a larger unit.

Extensive AI tooling and integrations are part of the stack. You will report to the Senior VP of Digital and drive standards for HIPAA-grade engineering, security, observability, and cost management while

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with 3+ years in people management.
• Led engineering at a startup/growth-stage through AI adoption with measurable results.
• Built and shipped production software using AI coding agents.
• Designed a multi-service cloud-hosted system with integrations.
• Established a modern CI/CD and testing regime; incident response experience.
• Experience with HIPAA, SOC 2 controls or plans for PHI handling and access control.
• Strong written and verbal communication with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering or related field.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical direction for all digital products and platform roadmap.
• Lead AI-native engineering practices and establish trustworthy agent harnesses.
• Measure delivery metrics and report AI impact on performance and cost.
• Partner with Data Science to ship predictive models safely into workflows.
• Mentor engineers, manage performance, and shape career paths.
• Collaborate with Product, IT, Operations, and Finance to translate priorities into plans.

Skills

Software engineering

People management

AI-assisted development

Cloud architecture

HIPAA security

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Codex

Go

TypeScript / SvelteKit

Kubernetes

Snowflake

Temporal

Azure

Entra ID

Job description

WHO WE ARE

At Pennant, our culture is our competitive advantage. We support a growing network of independently operated healthcare companies while empowering local leaders to make a meaningful impact in the communities they serve. And we are proud to be affiliated with the Pennant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PNTG). Our unique Service Center model provides resources and expertise across areas such as IT, HR, clinical, legal, and compliance, while giving our leaders freedom within a framework to make decisions, take ownership, and lead their teams. Our culture is grounded in our CAPLICO values: Celebration, Accountability, Passion for Learning, Love One Another, Intelligent Risk Taking, Customer Second, and Ownership. These aren't just words on a wall. They shape how we work, grow leaders, solve problems, and support one another. If you're looking for a place where your ideas matter, you're encouraged to take ownership, and you can grow alongside passionate people, Pennant may be the place for you. You can learn more about The Pennant Group at www.pennantgroup.com

JOB SUMMARY

Pennant Services is seeking an experienced, hands‑on Director of Engineering to lead the Application Development team that builds products for our post‑acute businesses (home health, hospice, home care, and senior living). Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Digital, the Director of Engineering leads how software is built at Pennant: the architecture, delivery system, people, and AI‑native engineering practice that lets a small team deliver like a large one. The team already uses AI coding agents extensively and integrates with HCHB, Snowflake, Twilio, and Microsoft Entra ID; and many others. The ideal candidate has led a development team through the AI shift at a startup or growth‑stage company, has architecture judgment they can defend, and understands the importance of speed, reliability, security, and responsiveness in a healthcare setting.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Architecture & Platform

• Own the technical direction of all digital products: service boundaries, data model, integration patterns, and the platform roadmap
• Support build / buy / defer decisions and document them with the technical tradeoffs and reversal cost
• Set and enforce standards for HIPAA‑grade engineering: PHI handling, audit logging, least‑privilege access, and environment promotion from sandbox through production
• Keep the platform operable: observability, on‑call, incident response, and cost management

AI‑Native Engineering Practice

• Make AI coding agents the default for design, implementation, testing, and review; remove the barriers that keep engineers from using them well
• Build the harnesses that make agent output trustworthy: evaluation suites, automated test generation, CI gates, and review standards
• Measure delivery (cycle time, change failure rate, defects reaching the field, cost per release) and report where AI helps and where it hurts
• Partner with the Data Science team on how predictive models and LLM features ship into clinical workflows safely

Team Leadership & Delivery

• Lead, mentor, and develop the development team: weekly 1:1s, clear expectations, performance reviews, career paths, and early action on underperformance
• Recruit, hire, and retain strong engineers; own the interview loop and raise the bar with every hire
• Grow output per engineer through tooling and automation before growing headcount; if you roll your eyes at this, do not apply.

Partnership & Representation

• Represent Application Development with clinical, operations, finance, and IT leaders; translate business priorities into engineering plans and engineering constraints into business terms
• Partner with Product Management, Data, Infrastructure and others to insure the success of Digital's products.
• Participate in pilot and rollout conversations with field agencies and operational partners
• Partner with IT on shared environments, security review, identity, and the boundary between the application platform and enterprise infrastructure
• Contribute to technical strategy and investment cases, including measuring the team's impact on Pennant outcomes

JOB REQUIREMENTS (Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities)

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading engineers as a people manager (1:1s, performance reviews, hiring, and difficult staffing decisions)
• Led engineering at a startup or growth‑stage company through the adoption of AI‑assisted development, with measurable before‑and‑after results (cycle time, release frequency, defect rate, or output at flat headcount)
• Personally built and shipped production software with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or equivalent) within the past 6 months
• Designed and operated a multi‑service, cloud‑hosted system with a production data layer and third‑party integrations
• Established a quality system (CI/CD, automated testing, code review standards, incident response) rather than inheriting one
• Experience working under HIPAA, SOC 2, or comparable controls, or a credible plan for standing up PHI handling, audit logging, and access control in new and existing platforms
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to clinical, operational, and finance leaders
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Healthcare operations or EHR integration experience (HCHB, Epic, eCW, WellSky, FHIR / HL7)
• Built or ran an AI harness layer: evaluation suites, agent skills, validation frameworks, or an internal AI developer platform
• Shipped LLM‑backed features to end users and evaluated them for accuracy and safety in production
• Migrated a product off a low‑code or rapid‑prototyping platform (e.g., Retool) onto a durable stack without stopping delivery
• Experience with Go, TypeScript / SvelteKit, Kubernetes (AKS), Snowflake, Temporal, Azure, and Microsoft Entra ID
• Experience working alongside data scientists and data engineers on a shared platform (Dataiku, Snowflake, dbt, or similar)
• Experience inside a larger company's internal product group after time at a startup

Reports To: SVP, Digital

Location: Remote - Western US (Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones)

Travel: Approx. 10-15%, including periodic visits to Service Centers and field operations

Full-Time Compensation: Variable depending on experience and location; eligible for annual bonus and equity

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

Pennant Services is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and consider qualified applicants for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the application and employment process.

Pennant Group is one of the most dynamic and progressive companies in the rapidly expanding senior living, home health, hospice, and home care industries. Affiliates of Pennant now operate more than 250 senior living, home health, hospice, and home care operations across 16 states and we are growing! These operations have no corporate headquarters or traditional management hierarchy. Instead, they operate independently with support from the "Service Center," a world-class service team that provides the centralized clinical, legal, risk management, HR, training, accounting, IT and other resources necessary to allow on‑site leaders and caregivers to focus squarely on day‑to‑day care and business issues in their individual agencies.

Something else that sets us apart from other companies is the quality of our most valuable resources – our people! We are dedicated to living out our culture as defined by our core values, CAPLICO: Customer Second Accountability Passion for Learning Love One Another Intelligent Risk Taking Celebrate Ownership By incorporating these principles at all levels of our organization, our employees feel valued and excited about their impact on our service center team members and operational partners. Our culture foster[s] excellence both personally and professionally and promotes development that leads to continued success. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to ensuring that all conditions and privileges of employment, including recruitment, hiring, evaluation, transfer, promotion, discipline, determination of compensation and or benefits, and termination of employment, for all job classifications, are based on qualifications and work record. No employment decision is made, nor do we discriminate, on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex/pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, veteran status, or disability.

JOB DESCRIPTION DISCLAIMER

This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed in this position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. Responsibilities and requirements may change based on business needs. The employer for this position is stated in the job posting. The Pennant Group, Inc. is a holding company of independent operating subsidiaries that provide healthcare services through home health and hospice agencies and senior living communities located throughout the US. Each of these businesses is operated by a separate, independent operating subsidiary that has its own management, employees and assets. More information about The Pennant Group, Inc. is available at http://www.pennantgroup.com. Pennant Group is one of the most dynamic and progressive companies in the rapidly expanding senior living, home health, hospice, and home care industries. Affiliates of Pennant now operate more than 250 senior living, home health, hospice, and home care operations across 16 states and we are growing! These operations have no corporate headquarters or traditional management hierarchy. Instead, they operate independently with support from the "Service Center," a world‑class service team that provides the centralized clinical, legal, risk management, HR, training, accounting, IT and other resources necessary to allow on‑site leaders and caregivers to focus squarely on day‑to‑day care and business issues in their individual agencies.

More information about Pennant is available at https://pennantgroup.com/.