Head of Engineering

Stardust; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work

Flexible vacation

Paid menstrual leave

Parental leave

11 holidays

Health insurance

401(k)

Job summary

Stardust is seeking a Head of Engineering to lead our AI-native, design-led technology effort from a remote-based position. You will own architecture across iOS, Android, web, backend, data, and security while shaping the engineering culture and delivery velocity.

You will mentor a growing team, partner with product and design, and bring strong product judgment to build privacy-conscious systems at scale. The role offers flexible work and health benefits.

Qualifications

• Experience leading an engineering org through meaningful growth in a mobile-first consumer company.
• Hands-on with agentic coding and evidence of reliable production code delivery.
• Ability to represent technology at the leadership level and partner with the CEO.
• Understanding AI-native, design-led collaboration between engineering, product and design.
• Ability to translate ambiguous initiatives from idea to launch using first principles.
• Strong product judgment and high craft standards.
• Motivation to contribute to Stardust’s mission around cycles and bodies.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the CEO to set technical strategy, roadmaps, and execution for a leading-edge product.
• Grow and mentor a multidisciplinary engineering team with clear structure and career paths.
• Lead the transition to agent-driven development with verification and QA systems for reliable production code.
• Redesign planning, delivery, and measurement to boost velocity while maintaining quality.
• Own privacy, security, data governance, and compliance across engineering systems.

Skills

AI agents experience

Team leadership (mobile/backend/data)

AI-driven development

Production ML models

Systems design

Privacy, security & compliance

Release management & feature flags

Job description

About the Team

We founded Stardust to revolutionize how people experience and understand their cycles. Unlike conventional period trackers, Stardust blends scientific insights with wonder and ancient wisdom. Features include lunar cycle syncing, friend syncing, a best-in-class pregnancy experience, and a partner option. More than five million people use Stardust, and we’re just getting started.

The Head of Engineering will join the leadership team and report to the CEO. They will lead technology across iOS, Android, web, backend, data, infrastructure, and security.

We’re a design-led company. This role requires someone who cares as much about how a product feels as how it’s built.

This is a fully remote role. Our team is concentrated in New York, California, and Istanbul, Turkey.

Roles and Responsibilities

As Head of Engineering, you will serve as a strategic partner to the CEO, aligning technical investments with company goals and growth priorities. You will own three critical pillars:

1. Build an Innovative, Leading-Edge Product

• Partner with the CEO to turn product vision into technical strategy, roadmaps, and execution.
• Understand the needs of our customers and translate them into technology decisions that improve their experience.
• Lead the strategy for improving Stardust’s prediction models and personalized insights at scale.
• Identify and integrate emerging AI capabilities into the core product.
• Bring strong product judgment and design taste to every technical decision.
• Move fluently between code, systems, and company strategy.

2. Build an AI-Native Engineering Organization

• Lead, grow, and mentor a multidisciplinary engineering team with clear structure, expectations, and career paths.
• Lead the transition to agent-driven development, with verification, review, and QA systems that allow agents to write production code reliably.
• Redesign how engineering plans, ships, and measures its work to deliver an order-of-magnitude increase in velocity.
• Shape how engineering, product, and design work together as engineering capacity expands.
• Serve as a player-coach who can go deep in the code, set a high bar, and develop strong people.
• Own incident management, reliability, and the operating rhythms required to sustain greater velocity.

3. Build Scalable Architecture with Privacy and Security at the Core

• Own architecture and infrastructure across iOS, Android, web, backend, and data.
• Ensure systems remain resilient, performant, secure, and cost-effective at scale.
• Own privacy, security, data governance, and compliance by setting and enforcing clear standards across engineering systems and practices.
• Set the long-term technical strategy and make deliberate tradeoffs between speed, innovation, and technical debt.

What We’re Looking For

• You’ve led an engineering organization through meaningful growth in a mobile-first consumer company.
• You’re currently hands-on with agentic coding and have clear evidence that your workflow ships reliable production code.
• You can represent technology at the leadership level and serve as a strong thought partner to the CEO.
• You understand how engineering, product, and design should work together in an AI-native, design-led company.
• You’re a first-principles thinker who can take ambiguous initiatives from idea to launch.
• You bring strong product judgment and hold a high bar for craft.
• You’re motivated by Stardust’s mission to help people understand their cycles and bodies.

Technical Requirements

• Recent hands-on experience shipping production code with AI agents, supported by rigorous testing and verification.
• Experience leading mobile, backend, and data teams at a consumer startup.
• A track record of moving teams toward AI-driven development while improving speed and quality.
• Experience shipping or overseeing production ML models, with a clear approach to personalization.
• Strong systems design across mobile, backend, data, and infrastructure.
• Experience embedding privacy, security, and compliance into engineering systems and practices.
• Experience managing mobile releases, feature flags, experimentation, and performance monitoring.

Bonus Points

• You’ve founded or co-founded a startup and bring resourcefulness, urgency, agency, and ownership.
• You have experience in health tech, femtech, or another consumer health field.
• You’ve shipped AI-powered consumer features at scale.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation for this role is competitive and will be determined based on experience and skills.

At Stardust, we prioritize your well-being and work-life balance. Full-time employees enjoy:

• Remote working flexibility
• Flexible paid vacation and sick leave
• Paid menstrual leave
• Enhanced parental leave and other leave of absences
• Eleven (11) paid holidays
• Comprehensive health insurance (medical, dental, and vision) with a monthly company contribution of $1,000
• 401(k) plan