Head of Engineering

Job Description

About Eugene

The power to predict and prevent health issues is in our DNA. Eugene’s purpose is to empower every person to act on this knowledge.

Pairing at-home medical-grade genetic testing with expert clinical care, Eugene partners with insurers, clinics, and health systems to make preventive genomic care accessible to all, shifting the focus of healthcare from treatment to true prevention.

Eugene are building a future where everyone can sequence their DNA once and receive personalised guidance for life, transforming genomics from a one-time diagnostic tool into a lifelong foundation for better health.

Since we launched in 2018, we’ve supported many thousands of people across Australia, released an Australia first medicare-covered genetic test and are backed by Australian and US venture capital and strategic investors.

Eugene is a remote-first organisation, allowing you to work anywhere within Australia, or in-person at our office in Richmond, Victoria.

About the role

We're looking for a Head of Engineering who's still close to the code. You'll lead a small, high-autonomy team building a clinical genomics platform that powers end-to-end genetic testing and counselling for patients, clinicians, and healthcare partners. Today that means you're hands-on 60–70% of the time — designing systems, reviewing architecture, debugging production, and shipping meaningful code alongside your team. That ratio will evolve as we scale, but we need someone who wants to be in the work right now, not managing from a distance.

What you'll own

• Platform architecture and delivery. You're accountable for the technical direction of the product end-to-end — from infrastructure and data model through to the frontend experience. Our current stack is AWS Lambda (serverless), Laravel 12/PHP 8.4, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Next.js, and React. You don't need to have used all of these, but you should be comfortable reasoning across the full stack and making pragmatic technology decisions.
• AI product delivery. We have a roadmap for LLM-based functionality and you’ll own how we get there. You'll need hands-on experience building AI-powered features in production, for eg: RAG pipelines, evaluation frameworks and agent workflows.
• Technical roadmap. Translate business goals into incremental delivery plans that balance speed with sustainability. You'll work directly with the founders to make tradeoff decisions and sequence work against company priorities.
• Security, infrastructure, and compliance. We're SOC2 compliant and want to keep it that way. You'll own our compliance maintenance obligations and are accountable for our security posture and infrastructure reliability — including our AWS environment, CI/CD pipelines, and identity infrastructure like Google SSO. This doesn't mean you do everything yourself, but nothing ships that you haven't signed off on.
• Team leadership. Coach, unblock, and raise the bar for a small engineering team. Set the standards for code quality, review practices, and delivery cadence. As we grow, you'll shape how the team scales — hiring, structure, and ways of working.

What success looks like

• By 30 days, you have all of the context, you’ve started to build relationships within the delivery team and the organisation. You’re up and running in the codebase and are contributing meaningfully to each sprint.
• By 60 days, the first AI feature is scoped and ready to build and you have a clear view on the sequencing of the rest of the roadmap.
• By 6 months, the team is delivering at a pace that meaningfully outstrips where we are today, and you've built the technical foundations for the next phase of growth.

About you

• You've built and shipped software at a level where people trusted you with system-wide decisions — not just feature delivery. Whether that was called "staff engineer" or "tech lead" or "CTO of a 5-person startup" matters less than the judgment and scope.
• You have a strong sense of urgency without being reckless. You actively use AI-assisted development workflows and expect your team to do the same, not as a novelty, but as a genuine multiplier on throughput.
• You thrive in small teams where your work directly shapes the company's trajectory. You're not waiting for a perfectly defined brief — you're filling gaps, making decisions with incomplete information, and moving fast.
• You have experience with modern MVC frameworks and can reason across a full stack. Familiarity with our stack — Laravel 12/PHP 8.4, AWS serverless, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Next.js — is a bonus, not a requirement.
• You've shipped AI-powered features in production and have informed opinions about where LLM tooling is ready to trust and where it isn't.
• You communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders. You can translate complexity without dumbing it down.
• SOC2 or equivalent compliance experience is a plus. Experience with clinical software or regulated environments is highly regarded.

Benefits

We offer a competitive compensation package in a collaborative and inclusive work environment. We value diverse perspectives and the ability to work cross-functionally. This role provides:

• The opportunity to work at a company committed to doing well by doing good.
• ESOP – Employee Stock Ownership Plan so you can grow with the company
• A competitive parental leave policy that provides support and flexibility for new parents.
• Challenging, meaningful problem solving that positively impacts our customers' lives.
• A yearly L&D budget to support your professional development and help you stay at the cutting edge of industry trends and technologies.
• A monthly wellness budget to encourage self-care and well-being, which we believe are key to maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
• A remote-first work environment.

Hiring process

Our hiring process includes:

• Phone screen
• Skills assessment
• Technical interview
• Culture interview

Our hiring process is intentionally designed to be simple, effective, and respectful of everyone's time.