Lead Backend Software Engineer

Visilant; Baltimore (MD); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Visilant is a commercial-stage digital health company spun out of Johns Hopkins University focused on creating accessible, AI-powered eye screening technologies to reduce avoidable blindness. Visilant is building a scalable backend that connects patients, health workers, AI models, and clinical partners.

The Lead Backend Software Engineer will own architectural direction, design secure and scalable cloud-based systems, and collaborate with product, AI, and clinical teams to deploy across global

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering, backend focus, and leadership experience.
• Experience designing and scaling production backend systems and distributed architectures.
• Strong proficiency in Python, Node.js, Java or similar, with REST APIs and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, and data infrastructure powering Visilant’s healthcare platform.
• Own architecture decisions across backend systems, including service design, databases, messaging infrastructure, and cloud deployment.
• Develop reliable systems for patient data management, AI inference workflows, telemedicine operations, and clinical reporting.
• Build integrations between Visilant’s platform and healthcare systems, including EMRs, EHRs, and standards such as FHIR and HL7.
• Develop secure APIs and services supporting mobile applications, clinician portals, AI models, and external partners.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

Technical leadership

REST APIs

Security & reliability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Python

Node.js

Java

Databases

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

Job description

Visilant is a commercial-stage digital health company spun out of the Johns Hopkins University focused on creating and deploying accessible, AI-powered eye screening technologies to eliminate avoidable blindness. More than 1 billion people live with treatable eye diseases, yet care remains out of reach due to a shortage of eye specialists, long travel distances, and high costs, especially for rural and low-income patients.

Visilant is building a comprehensive technology portfolio for scalable eye care access. Our proprietary smartphone-based imaging system, SeekerTM enables health workers with no prior eye care experience to capture clinical-grade, diagnostic-quality images of the front-of-the-eye, including the leading causes of blindness globally. Our AI algorithms and software platform enable instant patient diagnosis, referral, telemedicine consultation, and follow-up support. Visilant has partnered with the world’s leading eye care systems and technology companies to scale access to eye care globally.

The Role

We are hiring a hands-on Lead Backend Software Engineer to own the architecture, development, and scaling of Visilant’s backend platform. This role will be a foundational engineering position responsible for building the systems that connect patients, healthcare workers, AI models, and clinical partners.

You will design and implement secure, reliable, and scalable backend infrastructure supporting our AI-powered screening platform, including APIs, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, healthcare integrations, and clinical workflows. You will work closely with leadership, product, AI, and clinical teams to define technical strategy and build systems that enable deployment across global healthcare environments.

This is an opportunity to own critical architecture decisions from day one and build technology that directly improves access to care for millions of patients.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, and data infrastructure powering Visilant’s healthcare platform.
• Own architecture decisions across backend systems, including service design, databases, messaging infrastructure, and cloud deployment.
• Develop reliable systems for patient data management, AI inference workflows, telemedicine operations, and clinical reporting.
• Build integrations between Visilant’s platform and healthcare systems, including EMRs, EHRs, and interoperability standards such as FHIR and HL7.
• Develop secure APIs and services supporting mobile applications, clinician portals, AI models, and external partners.

Cloud Infrastructure & Reliability

• Design and maintain secure, scalable cloud infrastructure supporting production healthcare applications.
• Lead engineering efforts to achieve and maintain SOC 2 compliance, including defining security controls, improving infrastructure practices, supporting audits, and driving remediation of identified gaps.
• Own technical implementation of HIPAA-compliant systems, including security architecture, access controls, encryption, audit logging, data protection, and secure handling of protected health information (PHI).
• Improve system scalability, observability, monitoring, and reliability as deployments expand to support millions of patients.
• Build secure data pipelines for processing clinical images, AI predictions, and patient information.
• Implement engineering best practices around CI/CD, testing, deployment automation, and infrastructure management.

Technical Leadership

• Define and execute the technical roadmap to support scale, reliability, and innovation in partnership with organization leadership.
• Establish engineering standards, architecture patterns, testing practices, and development workflows.
• Mentor engineers and help build a high-performing software engineering team.
• Participate in technical decision-making across product, AI, and infrastructure initiatives.

Ideal Candidate Profile

Technical Expertise

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with significant backend development, and a strong track record of technical leadership and architectural decision-making.
• Proven experience designing and scaling production backend systems and distributed architectures.
• Strong proficiency in backend programming languages such as Python, Node.js, Java, or similar.
• Experience building and maintaining REST APIs, microservices, databases, and asynchronous workflows.
• Experience integrating third-party systems through APIs and data pipelines.
• Strong understanding of security, reliability, observability, and performance optimization.
• Experience building healthcare technology platforms, clinical applications, or enterprise software systems preferred.
• Familiarity with healthcare interoperability standards such as FHIR and HL7 strongly preferred.
• Experience working with sensitive data environments and regulated software development practices preferred.

Mission Fit

Passion for health equity and social impact.

Excited to improve access to care for underserved populations globally

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with digital health platforms in global or resource-constrained settings.
• Experience supporting mobile health applications or offline-first systems.
• Experience with computer vision pipelines or AI model deployment infrastructure.
• Familiarity with quality management systems and software lifecycle standards (ISO 13485, IEC 62304).

Why Join Visilant?

Play a key role in building one of the largest AI-enabled eye care platforms in the world.

Build a product that will touch millions of lives globally.

Enjoy autonomy, growth, and the opportunity to shape health systems of the future.