Vice President of Engineering

Sanderson King; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 240,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity

Hybrid in-office (NYC)

Job summary

Sanderson King seeks a VP of Engineering for an AI-first consumer health tech platform in New York City. The role blends hands-on product development (about 75%) with leadership (about 25%), reporting to the Founder and CEO.

You will shape product and technical direction, build and ship major features, and mentor an established engineering team. You will work in a hybrid model four to five days in the office, drive AI-powered features, and guide the architecture across web, mobile, backend and

Qualifications

• 10+ years in hands-on development and engineering leadership.
• Experience as player-coach combining coding with team leadership.
• Strong full-stack React/Node.js and AI product experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the CEO to shape product, engineering and technology strategy.
• Build and ship critical products across web, mobile, backend and AI systems.
• Own features end-to-end from problem discovery to production launch.
• Lead, mentor and raise the performance of the product engineering team.
• Recruit and develop engineering talent as the business scales.
• Apply AI and agentic tools to accelerate delivery and improve quality.
• Build and enhance LLM-powered features through experimentation and fine-tuning.
• Establish a high-performance engineering culture with speed and accountability.
• Create elegant, consumer-grade experiences within healthcare.

Skills

Player-coach

Full-stack

React

Node.js

LLMs

AI-powered products

Job description

VP of Engineering – AI-First Consumer Health Technology

New York City – Hybrid, four to five days in office

$240,000–$280,000 base salary + competitive equity

Sanderson King is supporting a rapidly scaling, venture-backed consumer health technology business with the appointment of a VP of Engineering.

The company combines human expertise with AI-powered technology to deliver more accessible, personalized preventative healthcare. Having grown its annual revenue run rate from approximately $4 million to $30 million within a year, the business is now building the leadership and technology platform required to scale beyond $100 million.

Reporting directly to the Founder and CEO, the VP of Engineering will shape both product and technical direction while leading and developing the engineering team.

This is a genuinely hands-on player-coach role-not a purely supervisory engineering leadership position. Initially, approximately 75% of the role will involve hands-on product development, design collaboration and engineering, with around 25% focused on team leadership and management.

The opportunity

You will:

• Partner directly with the CEO to shape product, engineering and technology strategy.
• Personally build and ship critical products across web, mobile, backend and AI systems.
• Own features end-to-end, from understanding the customer problem through to production launch.
• Lead, mentor and raise the performance of an established product engineering team.
• Recruit and develop additional engineering talent as the business scales.
• Apply AI and agentic tools throughout the development lifecycle to accelerate delivery and improve product quality.
• Build and enhance LLM-powered features through experimentation, evaluations, fine-tuning and agentic workflows.
• Establish a high-performance engineering culture combining speed, accountability and an exceptional standard of execution.
• Help create elegant, intuitive and consumer-grade experiences within a complex healthcare environment.

What we are looking for

• Significant engineering experience, ideally including 10 or more years across hands-on development and technical leadership.
• Recent experience operating as a player-coach, combining direct product building with engineering team leadership.
• Strong full-stack development capability, particularly across React and Node.js.
• Practical experience building AI-powered products and working with LLMs, evaluations, experimentation or agentic tools.
• Experience creating sophisticated but intuitive consumer or consumer-style digital products.
• Strong product judgment and the ability to influence what should be built—not simply how it should be delivered.
• A decisive and opinionated leadership style, with a high bar for quality and a bias toward action.
• The resilience and pace required to succeed within a demanding, entrepreneurial and rapidly scaling environment.
• The ability to work from the company’s New York City office four to five days per week.
• Experience within health technology, wellness, fitness, behavioral change, insurance-supported care or consumer fintech would be advantageous. Founder, founding engineer or early-stage engineering leadership experience would also be highly relevant.

This opportunity is unlikely to suit leaders who have moved completely away from hands-on development or senior individual contributors without meaningful team leadership experience.

Package

• $240,000–$280,000 base salary, with potential flexibility for an exceptional candidate.
• Competitive equity, with scope to balance cash and equity according to candidate preference.
• Direct reporting line to the Founder and CEO.
• Significant ownership of product and technical direction.
• New York City-based, working in office four to five days per week with some flexibility.

Limited visa transfers may be considered, but the company is unable to provide new visa sponsorship.