Founding AI Engineer

Sailor Health

$120K — $180K *
Healthcare
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Proven track record as an A+ performer with a passion for excellence.
  • 2-6 years of experience in engineering roles, ideally in startups or fast-paced environments.
  • Deep full-stack fluency, able to transition between front and backend systems effortlessly.
  • Strong product intuition, focusing on user needs and prioritizing impactful features.
  • Familiar with modern technologies including TypeScript, Node.js, React, Python, and Postgres, with versatility to learn new tools rapidly.
  • Mission-driven mindset, eager to create technology that enhances lives.

Responsibilities

  • Architect core systems from the ground up for patient experiences and therapist workflows.
  • Lead the development of AI-native features like speech-to-text and care navigation tools.
  • Own entire architecture from backend to frontend, ensuring clean and fast production-ready code.
  • Establish technical stack, infrastructure, and security protocols as a technical co-architect.
  • Collaborate with clinicians and designers to iterate rapidly and deliver solutions without delay.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work on pioneering mental health technology for older adults.
  • Direct impact on transforming senior mental health care accessibility and quality.
  • Autonomy to make major technical decisions and shape engineering culture.
  • Collaboration with co-founders and clinicians fostering a fast-paced innovative environment.
Full Job Description
About Sailor Health

Sailor Health is revolutionizing mental health care for older adults, addressing one of the fastest-growing and most underserved healthcare segments in America. With over 60 million seniors projected to represent nearly 25% of the population by 2030, we're facing a seismic shift in healthcare demand. Yet, today, millions of older adults remain isolated, underserved, and struggling with mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, and life transitions without adequate support.

At Sailor Health, we envision a world where every senior enjoys seamless access to personalized, compassionate, and effective mental health care. We're building a comprehensive, tech-enabled behavioral health platform to deliver superior mental health care directly into seniors' homes. By partnering with Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans, we're making high-quality geriatric psychotherapy not just accessible-but affordable, scalable, and transformative.

Join us on our mission to redefine the golden years, enabling older adults across the nation to live happier and healthier lives. This isn't just a job-it's an opportunity to pioneer a movement in geriatric mental health and reshape the future of aging.

About the Role

Location: New York City, in office, 5+ days a week.

We're hiring a Founding Full-Stack Engineer to join our core team at Sailor Health and help architect the future of mental health for older adults. You'll work side-by-side with our co-founders to build the systems and AI infrastructure that power our platform - from patient onboarding and therapist tooling to real-time voice agents and care navigation copilots.

This is a ground-floor opportunity to design and launch an AI-first product from scratch. You'll own major technical decisions, shape our engineering culture, and bring bold ideas to life - fast. If you're eager to move with speed and autonomy, and want your code to drive meaningful, measurable impact at scale, we'd love to meet you.

Your Key Responsibilities
  • Architect from scratch: Design and ship core systems across our patient experience, therapist workflows, and EHR - from first line of code to production-ready tools
  • Lead AI innovation: Build and scale AI-native features including speech-to-text triage, care navigation copilots, auto-summarized progress notes, intelligent intake, and real-time voice agents that speak with families
  • Own the full stack: Whether it's React, Node, Python, or Postgres - you'll own the architecture end-to-end and choose the right tools to get the job done fast and clean
  • Lay the groundwork: Define our stack, infra, security model, and development processes as our technical co-architect and founding engineer
  • Move at the speed of light: Collaborate directly with clinicians, designers, and founders to ship, iterate, and improve in real-time - with no bureaucratic drag


Your Qualifications & Skills
  • You're an A+ player. You have a burning desire to win, a track record of excellence, and a drive to build with urgency and precision. You want to be the best and you want your team win.
  • You have 2-6 years of experience. You've contributed meaningfully to engineering teams in fast-paced, high-ownership settings - ideally at startups or in founder-facing roles.
  • You're fluent across the stack. You move confidently between backend and frontend systems and can architect elegant, scalable solutions end-to-end.
  • You have strong product intuition. You think beyond the code - anticipating user needs, prioritizing for impact, and sweating the details.
  • You're skilled in modern tools. You have hands-on experience with technologies like TypeScript, Node.js, React, Python, Postgres, and LLMs - or can pick up new tools quickly.
  • You're mission-driven. You're excited to build technology that improves lives and want your work to have real-world impact at scale.

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