Head of Engineering

ABOUT THE ROLE Location: Remote in US or Canada At Jona, we’re transforming how clinicians and consumers understand and optimize their gut microbiome. Our AI-powered platform decodes complex microbiome data and translates it into actionable insights—supporting better outcomes, stronger immunity, and longer health spans. We’re looking for a player‑coach, hands‑on Head of Engineering to help us scale our core product. You’ll lead a small, high‑performing team while staying close to the code—shipping features, shaping architecture, and bringing AI‑powered capabilities into production. This is a high‑impact role: you’ll influence product direction, define how we build, and help turn ideas into real, user‑facing systems fast. ROLE OUTLINE Experience going from 0 to 1 : Own projects end‑to‑end, from ideation to delivery Architect systems : Design scalable backends, frontends, and AI‑powered applications Build AI into the product : Integrate and operationalize ML models into various aspects of our product stack Establish MLOps foundations : Drive infrastructure for Model training, deployment and monitoring Collaborate tightly : Work directly with product, design, and data to move fast Raise the bar : Improve code quality, CI/CD, developer experience, and reliability Manage and mentor : Build, support, unblock, and grow a small team of engineers Culture: Nurture a high‑performance and agile engineering culture WHAT YOU’LL BRING 10+ years of software development experience 3+ years of building and shipping modern AI‑enabled web applications or platforms in production 3+ years of experience deploying and operating ML/AI systems in production Experience leading small engineering teams and mentoring engineers while remaining highly hands‑on Strong full‑stack skills (TypeScript, React, Node.js) Experience designing scalable APIs and working with production databases, especially PostgreSQL and other SQL systems Experience with Docker/containers Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure‑as‑code experience Solid experience with AWS and owning cloud/platform maturity Strong familiarity with MLOps practices, including model lifecycle management, monitoring, deployment, and data/model pipelines Comfortable owning ambiguous problems and moving quickly Strong product instincts—you care about what gets built, not just how Exposure to regulated environments (e.g., healthcare/HIPAA) PREFERENCES Experience in health‑tech and can communicate well with science/clinical stakeholders Experience in healthcare or a regulated data background is preferred Experience interviewing and helping hire strong engineers is preferred; experience building a small team is a plus Experience with Kubernetes Familiarity with NoSQL/vector/search stores is a plus WHY JOIN JONA Own meaningful problems : Your work will directly shape the product and user experience Build with AI at the core : Not a side project—this is central to what we do Small team, big impact : Your decisions matter immediately Move fast : Minimal bureaucracy, high trust, real ownership Full Benefits: Medical, Dental & Vision: Competitive medical, dental, vision insurance for employees and dependents. This includes medical, dental, and vision premiums as well as a company contributed HSA/FSA. Retirement Matching: Jona has a 401k plan that offers company matching for dollars you contribute. Jona’s vacation policy is to take vacation. We operate on a Freedom and Responsibility model of unlimited PTO. Equity: We offer meaningful equity ownership, allowing team members to share directly in the long‑term success of Jona. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Salary range: $225K - $270K Equity #J-18808-Ljbffr