Cairns Health (https://www.cairns.ai/) is creating a fundamentally better healthcare experience for people with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. We make healthcare more accessible by simplifying complex care plans, connecting care teams and meeting patients where they live. Through our conversational AI, patients use their voice to interact with our digital care companion, who proactively gives medication reminders, symptom checks, behavioral nudges and even engages in friendly conversation to ease loneliness. Cairns uses a device that includes radar to put the patient in context and passively monitors their activities, including: heart rate, breathing rate and sleep stages, all without a wearable. The result is informed and timely intervention that drives improved clinical outcomes, reduced care delivery costs and a more satisfactory healthcare experience for all.

Senior Manager, Software Engineering

We’re seeking a Senior Manager, Software Engineering to help build and scale Cairns Health’s AI-driven remote care platform for seniors and people with complex, chronic conditions. This role is a hands-on, player-coach position at the intersection of backend systems, LLM-powered applications, and healthcare-grade reliability. You will own core platform architecture, lead a small team of engineers, and drive execution from design through production—balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability while operating in a regulated, real-world healthcare environment.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Hands-On Development

• Remain deeply hands-on, contributing production code on a regular basis while leading by example.
• Own and evolve the architecture and system design of core backend and AI-driven platforms.
• Design, build, and operate scalable backend services supporting LLM-powered health and wellness applications.
• Make pragmatic architectural decisions that balance rapid iteration with long-term maintainability and reliability.
• Lead design reviews, code reviews, and technical discussions, serving as a technical authority for the team.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

• Manage and mentor a team of 3–4 software engineers, fostering growth, accountability, and technical excellence.
• Act as a player-coach, supporting engineers through hands-on guidance, pairing, and thoughtful feedback.
• Support hiring, onboarding, and development of future team members as the organization grows.
• Create a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performance engineering culture.

Delivery & Execution

• Own team delivery, including planning, execution, quality, and timelines.
• Translate product and business requirements into clear technical plans and deliverables.
• Drive adoption of Agile practices and tools, including sprint planning, backlog management, retrospectives, and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with product, design, clinical, and operations teams to deliver customer value efficiently.

Cross-Functional & Domain Collaboration

• Collaborate across backend, data, AI/LLM, hardware, and firmware teams to deliver integrated solutions.
• Work within healthcare and regulated environments, contributing to systems that require security, reliability, and compliance.
• Participate in operational excellence efforts, including monitoring, observability, incident response, and uptime improvements.

Qualifications

Required

• 7–10 years of experience as a software engineer, with strong backend and system design expertise.
• 3–5 years of experience managing engineers, ideally in a player-coach or hybrid leadership role.
• Strong experience designing and operating backend systems using Java (11+), cloud-native architectures, and RESTful APIs.
• Deep familiarity with AWS and modern cloud infrastructure (containers, orchestration, CI/CD).
• Strong understanding of LLM architectures and production AI systems (e.g., RAG, orchestration, scaling, latency considerations).
• Experience working with Agile development practices and tools (e.g., Scrum or Kanban, Jira, GitHub, CI/CD pipelines).
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to lead through influence, clarity, and technical credibility.
• A strong affinity for startup culture — comfortable with ambiguity, fast iteration, and high ownership.

Nice to Have

• Experience building or operating HIPAA-compliant or other regulated healthcare systems.
• Exposure to hardware and/or firmware integration, embedded systems, or IoT-style architectures.
• Prior experience scaling early-stage systems or teams in a startup environment.
• Familiarity with messaging systems, event-driven architectures, or real-time data pipelines.

Benefits

We offer competitive compensation, equity & benefits - including medical, dental, vision and paid vacation/sick days and 401(k) plans.

Location

This role works 4 days in office from Sunnyvale, CA.

About Cairns Health

Cairns Health (https://www.cairns.ai/) is creating a fundamentally better healthcare experience for people with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. We make healthcare more accessible by simplifying complex care plans, connecting care teams and meeting patients where they live. Through our conversational AI, patients use their voice to interact with our digital care companion, who proactively gives medication reminders, symptom checks, behavioral nudges and even engages in friendly conversation to ease loneliness. Cairns uses a device that includes radar to put the patient in context and passively monitors their activities, including: heart rate, breathing rate and sleep stages, all without a wearable. The result is informed and timely intervention that drives improved clinical outcomes, reduced care delivery costs and a more satisfactory healthcare experience for all.

To Apply

Please send your resume and cover letter to anya at cairns.ai