Engineering Director

Qualified Health PBC; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 240,000 - 310,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Qualified Health PBC is seeking a Director of Engineering in Palo Alto to set the strategic direction and organizational structure for a rapidly growing engineering team. You will own leadership across applications, AI-driven product development, and our core platform, shaping roadmap priorities and resourcing.

The role emphasizes building managers, aligning with senior leadership, and delivering value-based outcomes, with hands-on involvement only as needed to unblock teams.

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years of engineering experience with 4+ years as people manager.
• Experience growing a team to 10+ people.
• Experience managing 10–15+ engineers directly or via managers.
• Comfort with system design; some hands-on coding.
• Broad technical breadth across backend, applied AI/ML, and platform or distributed systems.
• Background as an engineering tech lead prior to transitioning into management.

Responsibilities

• Own full people management responsibilities across your organization: performance reviews, conflict resolution, career progression, and hiring.
• Build and scale a high-performing engineering organization, growing headcount thoughtfully as the org expands.
• Drive the roadmap and delivery across the full engineering organization, including application scaling and delivery, new product development, and our core platform.
• Guide the adoption of the latest LLM methodologies and applied AI techniques to solve high-impact problems in healthcare.
• Lead modernization of the platform to support a scaling application layer.
• Manage and develop the managers and functional leads across your organization.
• Partner with executive leadership to align roadmaps and priorities across Applications and Platform.
• Stay close to the technical work to unblock teams while spending most time on management.

Skills

People management

System design

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Applied AI/ML

Hands-on coding

Job description

Job summary

Our engineering organization has tripled in size over a short period, and we are seeking a Director of Engineering to set the strategic direction and organizational structure for this next stage of growth demands. This is an engineering leadership role with ownership across our entire engineering organization — application scaling and delivery, new product development powered by cutting-edge AI and LLM methodologies, and our core platform.

The Director will lead through a team of technical leaders, shaping org-wide roadmap priorities, resourcing, and technical direction rather than running any single team day-to-day. This role is central to our value-based contracting strategy, working directly with senior leadership and major accounts to help realize and demonstrate substantial business value.

We are looking for a proven, sustained engineering leader with a track record of building and scaling engineering organizations and developing managers into stronger leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Own full people management responsibilities across your organization: performance reviews, conflict resolution, career progression, and hiring
• Build and scale a high-performing engineering organization, growing headcount thoughtfully as the org expands
• Drive the roadmap and delivery across the full engineering organization, including application scaling and delivery, new product development, and our core platform.
• Guide the adoption of the latest LLM methodologies and applied AI techniques to solve some of the hardest, highest-impact problems in healthcare
• Lead modernization of the platform to support a scaling application layer
• Manage and develop the managers and functional leads across your organization
• Partner with executive leadership to align roadmaps and priorities across Applications and Platform
• Stay close enough to the technical work to make sound decisions and unblock your teams (~10%-50% hands-on), while spending the majority of your time on management and leadership
• Support client accounts' engineering needs, helping the business prove out value-based contract commitments

Required Qualifications

• 10–15+ years of engineering experience, including sustained, 4+ years of ongoing experience as a people manager
• Track record of growing a team from a small group to 10+ people
• Experience managing 10–15+ engineers, either directly or through other managers
• Demonstrated full-cycle people management skills: performance management, conflict resolution, and career development
• Comfort with system design and architecture discussions; some hands-on coding ability is expected; high comfortability and expertise with system design
• Strong technical breadth across backend engineering, applied AI/ML, and platform or distributed systems, with experience taking applications into production
• Background as an engineering tech lead prior to transitioning into management

Desirable Skills

• Experience at both a big tech company and a growth-stage startup
• Prior experience leading engineering for a health-tech business (not required, but a plus)
• Experience operating in value-based or outcomes-based contract environments
• Familiarity with modern LLM tooling and methodologies
• Experience partnering with account or business leadership on high-stakes, high-value client relationships

Pay & Benefits:

The pay range for this role is between $240,000-$310,000, and will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. This role is also eligible for equity and benefits.

Our Commitment to Diversity

Qualified Health is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace is essential to our success, and we are committed to building a team that reflects the world we live in. We encourage applications from all qualified individuals, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, disability, or veteran status.