Tiny Health is advancing lifelong health, from the first 1,000 days to the last, and addressing chronic disease through precision microbiome science. Founded in 2020 and built by microbiome scientists and physicians, our testing platform reveals whether your microbiome is trending toward resilience or imbalances using shotgun metagenomics, proprietary AI, and one of the world's largest longitudinal datasets. Trusted by families and health practitioners alike, our research-backed gut and vaginal tests are redefining the microbiome as a cornerstone of personalized health through every life stage. Learn more at tinyhealth.com and poweredbytiny.com.
The OpportunityAs our first VP of Engineering, you will own engineering at Tiny Health end to end. Our team of roughly a dozen engineers works across two pods and has grown without a dedicated leader, with ownership over technical direction, architecture, hiring, and people management currently fragmented between various people. You will bring all of that under one roof: lead the people, set and ship a clear technical and architecture strategy, and stand up the performance and growth systems a maturing engineering org needs.
We are looking for a hands-on leader who is as comfortable in the codebase as in a 1:1, someone who can earn the trust of senior engineers, develop them into the tech leads we do not yet have, and represent engineering at the executive table. You will be the sole voice for engineering among business and product leaders, partnering closely with product and company leadership to get the right architecture and scaling work prioritized and delivered. You must be able to deliver highly technical information in lay business terms, communicating risk, reward and impact effectively to non-technical audiences. This role reports directly to our co-founder and Chief Growth Officer.
What You’ll DoBecome the terminal owner of engineering. Resolve technical and people decisions by convening the right people and acting on a strong point of view, rather than routing decisions upward.
Build an engineering performance system that measures real individual impact beyond ticket volume, accounting for quality, reliability, and the non-project work people absorb, and use it to surface and act on both your strongest and your struggling engineers.
Set and continuously evolve the architecture and scaling strategy, informed by product and executive context, and use your influence to get that work onto pod roadmaps and shipped, so every pod is executing against a shared technical vision.
Represent engineering at executive tables. Keep executive stakeholders and colleagues informed of decisions within engineering and product that have downstream impacts across marketing, business development, operations and partnerships. Be able to collaborate effectively cross-departmentally.
Build the team: find where the gaps are, hire people who hold the bar, give every engineer a clear growth path, develop existing engineers into tech leads, and make sure each pod is resourced to deliver its roadmap.
Have directly managed and led engineers, including running 1:1s, performance, and individual growth.
Operate as a hands-on builder who still writes and reviews code and works directly in the system, not a pure people-leader.
Can engage senior engineers on architecture and scaling tradeoffs at their depth and earn their respect.
Experience serving as the sole voice for engineering among business and product leaders. Take a clear, bold position in the best interest of both engineering and the company, command the tradeoffs, and move the room through reasoning rather than authority.
Have run an engineering org or team of comparable size (roughly 10 to 12 engineers).
Have scaled a team from a single- or two-pod structure into a larger org with tech leads and engineering managers.
A track record of developing engineers and leveling existing talent up into senior or lead roles.
Have personally sourced, closed, and onboarded engineers who became A-players.
Experience in a healthcare, HIPAA, or SOC 2 compliant environment.
Structure messy, ambiguous data into a conclusion you can defend.
A mission that actually pulls people in
Most people here could be doing something easier. They’re not, because this work makes the microbiome measurable and actionable at every life stage — and the results land on real people who write in to tell us that we are life-changing to them. That feedback loop is the perk. It’s not just a job.Remote-first, real overlap
We’re a very diverse, international team, although we only hire FTEs in North America. Core hours are 9am–6pm CST, shiftable by up to two hours either way — start at 7am or 11am, wrap at 4pm or 8pm. Pick your window; just be findable in it.Written first, huddle second, meet last
Default to a clear Slack post: say whether you need a decision, an approval, or nothing at all. When a thread starts ping-ponging, jump into a huddle — ten minutes of voice beats forty of paragraphs. Meetings are the expensive option, so each one needs a decision to make, a preread or strawman sent ahead, and only the people who can actually make that call.Fast, but never sloppy
We ask “how do we do the two-month thing in two weeks?” — and then we check the work. We’re a health company: results, science, and anything a customer or practitioner touches get a second set of eyes, always. Moving fast and being careful aren’t in tension here; shipping errors isn’t speed, it’s rework.Shape what we build, not just how we build it
There’s no playbook waiting for you — you’ll write it, and that’s most true the more senior you are. Ideas get judged on whether they’re executed right, not on who raised them, and the person closest to the problem is usually the one who should be proposing the fix. Bring the alternative, not just the objection.Day One mentality
Fewer titles, fewer layers, fewer moving parts. Real process exists where it counts — data, lab, science, compliance, money — and we follow it, but process is a guardrail, not a destination. Process bloat is never the reason something didn’t ship.No hidden agendas
Transparency mean you’ll always understand how decisions are being made, especially at the top. We spend less time on politics and more on impact. Numbers, misses, and hard calls get shared openly. Feedback works the same way: in real time, not stockpiled for a review cycle. It’s a no-surprises culture: you should always know where you stand, and if you don’t, ask.High standards, genuinely fun people
Our CEO has been described as goofy but serious, direct but likable — and that sets the temperature. We take the work seriously and ourselves much less so. High-performing and fun to be around isn’t a contradiction; it’s the hiring bar.Is this pace for you?
We’re a venture-scaled company on a steep trajectory, and the pace is part of the job. There’s no deep bench to absorb the overflow, which is exactly why the scope here is bigger than it would be anywhere else at your level. We protect flexibility fiercely — more than half of us have kids — and ask for intensity in spikes, not as a constant grind. There’s no defined ladder. Perform, and you’ll move faster here than anywhere else.
Learn Fast, Get Better - Find the root cause, not just the fix, and get better every time
Be Relentlessly Resourceful - Dig for the answer, move fast, and know when to ask for help
Think Like an Owner, Act with Urgency - Act like it’s your company, and do whatever it takes to win
Act with Honesty and Empathy - Say what’s true, and say it with care
Delight People by Anticipating Their Needs - Solve the problem, then get two steps ahead of it
