Job description
At Atrix, our journey began with a simple belief:
Breakthrough medicines and technologies change lives, and the people making them deserve better tools.
We often celebrate the final moment: a patient receiving a life-saving therapy or a groundbreaking treatment becoming standard of care.
But behind that moment is a complex, coordinated effort that begins years earlier.
Pharmaceutical and med device companies shoulder this responsibility every day:
Advancing science from lab to clinic
Navigating regulatory and access barriers
Ensuring safe, evidence-based adoption in the real world
They’re not just bringing products to market; they’re shaping the future of care.
Yet these organizations are often held back by outdated workflows and siloed data, unable to fully harness the knowledge that already exists across their teams.
Atrix was built to change that.
We exist to support the mission of those who dedicate their lives to creating and delivering innovations that impact global health.
The Role Description
As the Head of Engineering, you will be responsible for building and scaling a high-performing engineering team that serves as the execution engine of the company’s vision.
You will lead hiring efforts, establish strong engineering processes, instill a culture of ownership and excellence, and ensure the team consistently delivers on business-critical product milestones.
You will work closely with the tech lead and eng team to shape architectural decisions, uphold compliance and high security standards, and drive product development velocity without compromising technical integrity.
As a hands-on leader, the Head of Engineering will contribute directly to the codebase (especially in the early stages) to unblock the team, set technical standards, and model best practices. The expectation is not only to manage but also to actively build; helping the team move fast while maintaining code quality, scalability, and reliability.
This role is critical to fulfilling the company’s mission of delivering secure, user-centric, and scalable AI solutions at enterprise quality to those who’ve dedicated their lives to creating life-saving medicine.
By tightly aligning engineering execution with business and product objectives, the Head of Engineering will ensure that technology becomes a competitive advantage for the company rather than a bottleneck as the company scales.
Responsibilities
The Head of Engineering will lead the technical execution engine of the company, translating product and business objectives into scalable, high-quality software. This role is both strategic and hands-on, with clear expectations around hiring, delivery, and culture-setting.
Build & Scale the Team: Own the engineering hiring pipeline, recruit top talent, and mentor early engineers to establish a high-performing, ownership-driven culture.
Execute Hands-On: Contribute directly to the frontend/backend codebase to accelerate velocity, unblock others, and model engineering best practices.
Lead Engineering Delivery: Translate business goals into engineering execution, own timelines, and implement lightweight planning, QA, and incident processes.
Influence Technical Direction: Partner with the Tech Lead to make foundational architectural decisions and ensure codebase scalability and maintainability.
Uphold Quality & Stability: Champion code quality, testing, observability, and system reliability across all development stages.
Foster Cross-Functional Alignment: Collaborate with product and business stakeholders to align engineering priorities with product milestones and GTM goals.
Drive Compliance & Security: Lead technical compliance efforts while embedding security and operational rigor into engineering workflows from day one.
Establish Engineering Operations: Introduce clear rituals (e.g. standups, retros, reviews) and tracking systems to build a predictable and accountable team rhythm.
Must haves
This role requires in-person for first 6 months, and flex hybrid after.
7-8+ Years of Industry Experience: Proven track record as a senior, staff, or principal engineer with deep technical contributions across complex systems and production environments.
Recent Engineering Leadership (2–3 Years): Hands-on management experience leading small, fast-paced engineering teams (5–10+ engineers), preferably in US-based startups or tech-forward environments.
Actively Technical & Builder Mindset: Must have written production code in the last 12–24 months; excited to jump into architecture discussions, code reviews, and unblock engineers through direct contributions.
Early-Stage Startup Experience (Seed–Series A): Has operated in 0→1 or 1→10 startup environments and understands the constraints, ambiguity, and velocity of building in early-stage companies.
Exposure to High-Execution Cultures and can bring a strong executional rigor to startup chaos.
Technical Breadth Across Stack: Proficiency in Python, TypeScript/React, and strong command of SQL/Postgres is required — can lead technical conversations across backend, frontend, and data.
System Design & Code Quality Ownership: Demonstrated ability to architect systems that scale, uphold best practices, and instill a culture of engineering excellence from day one.
Why Atrix as a Head of Engineering?
Bridge engineering and business impact: Work directly with the CEO to ensure technical decisions drive measurable outcomes for top pharma and med device companies.
Early eng. team build opportunity: Own the architecture, team hiring, and process design from the ground up; this is a true 0-to-1 engineering leadership role.
Real-world mission: Help accelerate how life-saving therapies reach patients by enabling medical teams to turn complex data into action.
Move fast, build right: Join a proven product and lean team at the perfect inflection point; where speed, quality, and scale all matter.
Own the future of the org: Shape the culture, standards, and long-term trajectory of Atrix’s engineering function.
What we offer
🚀 Fast-paced startup environment – Move fast, make an impact
🎯 End-to-end ownership – Drive execution, shape the future
📈 Career growth – Scale with us, grow your expertise
💪 Health & wellness support – Stipend + health insurance coverage
🌴 Unlimited PTO – Recharge when you need to
