Chief Technology Officer

Job Description

Job Description

About Foodsmart

Foodsmart is the leading telenutrition and foodcare platform, serving more than 3 million members across employer-sponsored health plans, Medicaid managed care organizations, Medicare Advantage plans, and commercial insurers. Backed by a national network of registered dietitians, the platform pairs personalized nutrition care with a benefits marketplace that drives measurable, lasting health outcomes.

In 2024, TPG's The Rise Fund invested $200M into Foodsmart. We are in a high-growth phase where technology is a direct driver of commercial results, member experience, and clinical impact. Our published outcomes include 42% of food-insecure members becoming food-secure within six months, meaningful weight loss and HbA1c improvement at 24 months, and an NPS of 86.

The Opportunity

This is a hands-on CTO role for a leader who stays close to the work and builds alongside the team. We are building a focused, fast-moving engineering organization at a moment when the business needs technology to move faster, ship higher-quality products, and translate directly into commercial, clinical, and member value. We recently moved to a pod-based operating model and brought on a strong Chief Product Officer who will be the CTO's closest counterpart in building and shipping products.

Over the past year we have invested in a strong foundational and data layer, and we have stood up a pod-based operating model that has meaningfully accelerated our product development lifecycle. The next CTO inherits an infrastructure and a working delivery model, and a clear runway to build on it and ship products that matter, rather than starting from scratch.

We run an engineering organization across a US-based team and a newly deployed offshore team in India. A core part of the CTO's mandate is to develop the long-range plan for domestic and offshore staffing, shaping how and where the organization grows as we scale.

This is also a rare moment to shape what a transformative consumer-driven healthcare business can do with AI. We are looking for someone energized by the opportunity to use AI not only to accelerate how we build, but to create entirely new service offerings and new forms of value for members and partners. Beyond product, this CTO will be a leader in a broad organizational transformation toward becoming a truly AI-enabled company, applying the technology across how the whole business operates. Foodsmart exists to bring foodcare to underserved populations and to take on some of the country's hardest problems: access to affordable, healthy food and changing behaviors to support sustainably healthier lives. The right leader is genuinely motivated by that mission and believes technology is how we deliver on it at scale.

We are looking for a builder: someone with a real fire in the belly, who loves being close to the work, has a strong bias for action, and holds themselves and their team to a high standard. This person thinks about technology in terms of the outcomes it produces and brings the urgency of a startup to a company at scale.

First 12 Months — Outcomes

1. Get and stay close to the work. Establish yourself as a leader who is directly engaged in the product day to day, so quality issues are caught early, decisions reach closure quickly, and urgency is felt across the whole organization.
2. Deliver a step-change in product and interface quality. Put in place the standards, ownership, and follow-through that eliminate recurring member- and client-facing defects, so fixes hold the first time.
3. Build a true partnership with the CPO and the broader business. Operate as one product-and-engineering leadership unit, converting a shared roadmap into shipped software with clear trade-offs, realistic capacity, and predictable delivery.
4. Make delivery visible and accountable. Stand up lightweight, real cadences — weekly shipped-work demos, engineering metrics, and a simple capacity view — that build business and board confidence without heavy process.
5. Build and retain a high-caliber team. Assess, develop, and level the engineering, data, IT, and security organization, and attract the talent needed to scale, while managing infrastructure cost against benchmarks.
6. Set the domestic and offshore staffing strategy . Develop the long-range plan for the US and India-based organization, shaping how and where the team grows to balance capability, cost, and speed as we scale.
7. Make AI a real productivity and product advantage. Move the organization from talking about AI to shipping with it — in the development process and in the member and partner experience — with pragmatic judgment about where it adds value.
8. Keep the platform secure and compliant. Ensure security, IT, and infrastructure continue to meet HIPAA, SOC 2, and the standards expected of a healthcare platform at scale.

Ongoing Scope

• Full ownership of Engineering, Data, IT, and Security across the US and India-based organization.
• Technical vision mapped directly to business strategy and commercial outcomes.
• The health, standards, and cost efficiency of the software development organization.
• Reliability, performance, and scalability of the web and mobile platform serving members and partners.

The behaviors below are the ones that matter most for this role and this stage. We are being deliberately specific because fit here is defined as much by how someone leads as by what they have built.

Must-Haves

• Mission-driven — genuinely energized by the problem we are solving; who believes in bringing foodcare to underserved populations and is motivated by using technology to expand access to affordable, healthy food and help people build sustainably healthier lives.
• A hands-on builder who leads from inside the work, with a real fire in the belly and a strong bias for action; close to the product, the team, and the details, and stays hands-on as the organization scales.
• Strong consumer technology experience and a record of building commercially viable products , with a track record of shipping consumer or consumer-grade experiences that customers love and that move the business.
• An accountable owner who owns outcomes end to end, drives decisions to closure, holds themselves and their team to a high standard, and does not deflect accountability to other teams. Brings urgency to what matters most.
• A genuine product partner, energized by working with a strong Chief Product Officer and other business leaders; sees product and engineering as a single delivery unit.
• Business-minded; prioritizes the work that drives business impact, speaks in terms of outcomes rather than activity and makes clear trade-offs against commercial and clinical goals.
• A talent magnet and builder of teams who can attract, assess, develop, and retain excellent technical talent, and who sets and holds a high standard across the organization.
• An excellent communicator, written and verbal, able to translate between technical and business audiences and build alignment across the executive team and the board.
• Fluent and pragmatic on AI, with early-adopter instincts with the judgment to apply AI where it creates leverage in product and development, and the ambition to help lead the company's broader transformation into a truly AI-enabled business.

Strongly Preferred

• Healthcare or digital health experience, and comfort with the compliance and security realities of the space (HIPAA, SOC 2).
• Experience scaling engineering in a growth-stage, PE- or VC-backed company, with an appreciation for cost discipline alongside growth.
• Experience leading distributed engineering organizations across US and offshore teams, and building the staffing strategy for both.
• Experience with two-sided marketplace or multi-stakeholder platforms.
• A self-aware, feedback-seeking growth mindset, and a kind, collaborative style that fits our values.

Experience

Typically 15+ years of relevant industry experience, including direct responsibility for setting org structure and technical vision across multiple products, and a track record of leading and coaching engineering organizations through scale. What matters most is not the size of the largest team led, but a demonstrated pattern of staying close to the work, shipping quality product, and driving commercial outcomes in partnership with product.

Three commitments define our culture. We put the customer first , starting with the member and working backwards to deliver experiences that earn lasting trust, and equipping our dietitians to provide exceptional, personalized care. We make it happen , taking on big challenges with hunger and courage, deciding from data, holding relentlessly high standards, and accelerating impact through innovation. And we operate as one team , investing in outstanding people, debating openly, and committing fully once a direction is set.

Foodsmart offers:

\uD83C\uDFE0 Remote-First Culture — Work from anywhere with a flexible schedule.
\uD83C\uDFDD️ Unlimited PTO — We prioritize rest and recharging.
\uD83C\uDFE5 Comprehensive Healthcare — Robust medical, dental, and vision coverage.
\uD83D\uDCB0 Financial Wellness — 401k, performance bonuses, and equity options.
\uD83E\uDD57 Personalized Nutrition — Access to our network of Registered Dietitians.

Foodsmart is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic.

Compensation is determined by role, level, and geography. The stated range reflects the target for new hires based at our San Francisco headquarters; individual offers are tailored to work location, professional expertise, and educational background.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.