Senior/Staff Software Engineer

Heartflowinc; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Heartflow is seeking a Senior or Staff Software Engineer to design, build, and operate the backend services behind our clinical platform — the systems that move patient imaging data through our AI analysis pipeline and deliver results to clinicians worldwide.

You will own end-to-end delivery, work with regulated data, and uphold a high bar for correctness, security, and scalability while collaborating with Product, Clinical, Operations, and Regulatory teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience for the Senior level; 10+ years for Staff level.
• Strong backend programming skills in Python or Java, with solid fundamentals in OO programming, data modeling, concurrency, and API design.
• Hands-on experience building and operating services on a cloud platform (AWS), and working knowledge of both SQL and NoSQL data stores.
• Experience designing, shipping, and operating production services in a distributed or microservices architecture.
• Disciplined approach to automated testing, code review, and debugging; ability to explain why code is correct.
• Experience with Agile development methodologies and project management tools.
• Working knowledge of web and OWASP security best practices.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services (Lambda, ECS, EKS, Fargate, S3, SQS, VPC), infrastructure-as-code tooling (Terraform, CDK), CI/CD, and observability.
• Ability to write and speak clearly about technical work, including to stakeholders outside engineering.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, and operate backend services and APIs for the Heartflow clinical platform, owning work from design review through production monitoring.
• Translate product and clinical requirements into clear technical designs; evaluate trade-offs among correctness, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Write high-quality, well-tested code and maintain documentation in a regulated environment.
• Build and improve services and data pipelines moving patient imaging data and analysis results securely at scale.
• Implement secure-by-default patterns for authentication, authorization, access control, and data integrity.
• Own reliability and performance; instrument systems, set up monitoring, and participate in on-call.
• Contribute to CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, and developer tooling to accelerate the team.
• Produce design, verification, and traceability documentation for FDA-regulated software and HIPAA compliance.
• Mentor engineers via code review, pairing, and design feedback; onboard new team members.
• Use AI coding assistants judiciously, with clear verification of outputs.

Skills

Python

Java

APIs

Data modeling

Concurrency

OOP

AWS

SQL

NoSQL

Testing

Code review

Agile

Security

Django

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS or related

Tools

AWS

Terraform

CDK

CI/CD

Job description

Heartflow is a medical technology company advancing the diagnosis and management of coronary artery disease, the #1 cause of death worldwide, using cutting-edge technology. The flagship product—an AI-driven, non-invasive cardiac test supported by the ACC/AHA Chest Pain Guidelines called the Heartflow FFRCTAnalysis—provides a color-coded, 3D model of a patient’s coronary arteries indicating the impact blockages have on blood flow to the heart. Heartflow is the first AI-driven non-invasive integrated heart care solution across the CCTA pathway that helps clinicians identify stenoses in the coronary arteries (RoadMapAnalysis), assess coronary blood flow (FFRCTAnalysis), and characterize and quantify coronary atherosclerosis (Plaque Analysis).Our pipeline of products is growing and so is our team; join us in helping to revolutionize precision heartcare.

Heartflow is a publicly traded company (HTFL) that has received international recognition for exceptional strides in healthcare innovation, is supported by medical societies around the world, cleared for use in the US, UK, Europe, Japan and Canada, and has been used for more than 750,000 patients worldwide.

We are seeking a Senior or Staff Software Engineer to design, build, and operate the backend services behind our clinical platform — the systems that move patient imaging data through our AI analysis pipeline and deliver results to clinicians around the world.

We are looking for an engineer who takes end-to-end ownership of their work, from design through production, and who holds a high bar for correctness and security because there is a patient on the other side of every case. You will work with complex medical data in a regulated environment, where design controls and traceability are part of how we build, not a step at the end.

This posting covers two levels. As a Senior Software Engineer, you will own the design and delivery of significant features and services within a team. As a Staff Software Engineer, your scope extends beyond a single team — you will lead multi-quarter technical initiatives that span services and teams, and act as a force multiplier for the engineers around you. We will calibrate level based on your experience and the interview process.

Job Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, and operate backend services and APIs for the Heartflow clinical platform, owning your work from design review through production monitoring
• Technical Design: Translate product and clinical requirements into clear technical designs; write and review design documents, and reason explicitly about trade-offs among correctness, performance, security, and long-term maintainability
• Write high-quality, well-tested code, and hold a high bar in code review — for correctness, readability, and the documentation our regulated environment requires
• Build and improve the services and data pipelines that move patient imaging data and analysis results through the platform reliably and securely, at scale
• Implement secure-by-default patterns for authentication, authorization, access control, and data integrity, in line with platform-wide security architecture standards
• Own reliability and performance for the systems you build: instrument them, set up monitoring and alerting, investigate production issues, and participate in on-call
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and developer tooling that make the whole team faster
• Produce the design, verification, and traceability documentation required for FDA-regulated medical software, and build to HIPAA requirements for handling patient data
• Mentor engineers through code review, pairing, and design feedback; help onboard new team members and raise the engineering bar around you
• AI-Assisted Engineering: Use AI coding assistants or agents in production work, with clear judgment about where they speed you up, where they don’t, and how you verify what they produce
• Partner with Product, Clinical, Operations, and Regulatory to scope work, and communicate technical trade-offs clearly to non-engineering stakeholders
• Technical Leadership (Staff): Lead technical initiatives that span multiple services and teams — drive the design, align stakeholders, break the work into deliverable milestones, and carry it through to production
• Risk and Standards (Staff): Identify technical risk and dependencies early and propose mitigations; help define and evolve engineering best practices, tooling standards, and architecture patterns adopted beyond your immediate team

Qualifications Required

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent experience
• Experience: 7+ years of professional software engineering experience for the Senior level; 10+ years, including demonstrated technical leadership beyond a single team, for the Staff level
• Technical Proficiency:
  • Strong backend programming skills in Python or Java, with solid fundamentals in object-oriented programming, data modeling, concurrency, and API design
  • Hands-on experience building and operating services on a cloud platform (AWS), and working knowledge of both SQL and NoSQL data stores
• Project Experience:
  • Demonstrated experience designing, shipping, and operating production services in a distributed or microservices architecture
  • Track record of owning a meaningful service or component end to end, including its reliability and performance in production
• Engineering Craft: Disciplined approach to automated testing, code review, and debugging; you can explain why your code is correct, not only that it works
• Methodologies: Experience with Agile development methodologies and project management tools
• Security Knowledge: Working knowledge of web and OWASP security best practices
• Platform: Hands-on experience with AWS services (Lambda, ECS, EKS, Fargate, S3, SQS, VPC), infrastructure-as-code tooling (Terraform, CDK), CI/CD, and observability
• Communication: Ability to write and speak clearly about technical work, including to stakeholders outside engineering
• Collaboration: Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment

How you stand out

• Experience with medical imaging data (DICOM), healthcare interoperability standards (HL7, FHIR), or systems that handle PHI
• Deep experience with Django and the Django ORM in a production service, including migration strategy and query performance tuning on large datasets
• Experience working within a controlled development process — FDA-regulated medical software, or another regulated or safety-critical domain
• For Staff-level candidates: a track record as a tech lead or staff engineer driving technical initiatives across multiple teams

A reasonable estimate of the base salary compensation range is $180,000 to $215,000 (for Senior level) or $190,000 to $250,000 (for Staff level), bonus and equity. #LI-Hybrid

Heartflow is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to a work environment that supports, inspires, and respects all individuals and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law. This policy applies to every aspect of employment at Heartflow, including recruitment, hiring, training, relocation, promotion, and termination.