Head of Engineering

Our vision:

Everyone who wants a family should have the chance to try. For the 1 in 6 families that struggle to conceive, fertility treatments are an option but they are expensive. We created the world’s first IVF insurance allowing people who wish to be parents to pursue treatment with increased financial flexibility. Because the difference between having a child or not should not be how rich you are.

The role:

As Head of Engineering, you will build and lead a team of highly-skilled, brave, and innovative engineers to execute on Gaia’s technical strategy. We are building a product at the intersection of finance and healthcare; in service of an industry that is complex, archaic, and significantly broken. As Head of Engineering you will be at the forefront of our technical vision and execution, leading an early-stage team of engineers to develop, implement, and refine our financial products and services for our members.

This role is perfect for you if you see the glass half full, if you are curious and bold, and if you thrive in autonomy. You shine in a mentorship role and enjoy managing a team through all of the twists and turns that come with setting and executing ambitious goals. Most importantly, you crave to be surrounded by extraordinary colleagues working to transform lives by giving people the opportunity to try for a family.

You will be part of the Gaia leadership team and report directly to our Founder & CEO, Nader AlSalim.

The responsibilities:

• Hire, onboard, and develop top-tier engineering talent
• Create and execute the Gaia technical strategy
• Partner with the CEO and the Gaia leadership team, shaping and achieving the company’s objectives
• Mentor, manage and coach engineers at Gaia in alignment with the Gaia 4s
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, boldly challenging existing technologies and methodologies and exploring new alternatives
• Partner with Product leadership to help shape the product roadmap
• Develop solutions that are technically robust, scalable and secure
• Set ambitious objectives for the engineering team and surpass them
• Establish and refine engineering process: going from idea to requirements, tasks, testing and deploying them in the real world - effectively communicating progress and blockers
• Work with Talent to ensure that the engineering team is appropriately resourced and structured to meet Gaia’s goals

You’ll be a great candidate for this role if:

• You’ve built an engineering team from 5 to ~50, and are hungry to do it again.
• You have experience hiring, onboarding, and developing excellent engineers - this is core to the job
• You’re comfortable managing/working with a team in a hybrid environment
• You have previously delivered in a complex, early-stage start-up environment in a senior leadership role
• Your background as an engineer makes you credible to your reports
• You have a proven track record in the development and delivery of high-quality software and services
• You take full accountability for achieving company objectives and inspire your team to deliver
• You make tough decisions, leveraging both data and intuition
• You plan ambitiously and look for ways to exceed expectations
• You see the forest for the trees: you are delivery-focused while keeping an eye on long-term priorities

The way we work

We’re a Series A startup with an incredible amount of work to do, it should be no secret that this is not an easy ride. We’ve created a supportive but challenging and demanding environment. You need to care, commit and enjoy being outside of your comfort zone. Those that do well are embody our Gaia 4s:

• Be extraordinary at what you do
• Drive or get out of the way
• Them, not you
• When in doubt, be brave

What we offer

Here at Gaia, our employees are the foundation of our success. We believe it's super important that you are happy, healthy, and motivated.

As such, alongside a competitive market bench-marked salary, we offer equity, private healthcare, fertility support, nursery benefits and more.

On top of this, we offer all employees a set up budget when they join and a personal development budget each year to build upon your skills. We’re working hard on our reward and recognition framework to make sure that those who are excelling above and beyond get what they deserve.

Diversity and Inclusion

At Gaia, we believe Diverse and Inclusive teams make better products, more successful businesses and help us to be better people.

Gaia counts 32 employees spanning 10+ different nationalities. Gaia’s board of directors is composed of founder Nader AlSalim and 2 women —  from Kindred Capital and Leila Zegna from KindredCapital and Terese Hougaard. Women are also well represented at the company’s C-suite level (COO, CMO, Chief of Staff) and within Gaia’s data and engineering team, a traditionally male dominated field.

We strive to create an organisation that welcomes people and does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, colour, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any other legally protected status.