Director of Technology

Director of Technology
Remote (U.S.) · Department: Technology · Reports to Executive Leadership

The technology you build here decides whether a kid in crisis gets seen today or waits.

Backpack Healthcare provides mental health care for children, teens, and young adults, all online, across a growing list of states. We're clinician-led and minority-owned, built by a founder who started this company because she couldn't find a Medicaid-accepting provider for her own son. Technology is how we scale that mission without losing what makes it work.

We need a Director of Technology who's just as comfortable in a code review as a budget conversation. Someone who leads the engineering org, sets the technology strategy, owns security and IT operations, and still wants to be hands-on when it counts.

What this role looks like

You'll set the technology vision and make sure it actually holds up: architecture, budgets, vendors, roadmaps. You'll lead and grow the engineering team, and you'll stay close enough to the work to review pull requests, weigh in on architecture, and unblock people when they're stuck. You'll own our security posture and HIPAA compliance, run IT operations, and lead how we bring AI into both our product and our internal workflows, always with governance that matches the sensitivity of what we handle.

What you'll own

• Technology strategy, roadmap, and budget, aligned with business and clinical priorities
• Engineering leadership: hiring, mentoring, culture, and hands-on technical involvement
• Product delivery: sprint planning, prioritization, and shipping things that matter
• Security and compliance: HIPAA, vulnerability management, incident response, audit partnership
• IT operations: infrastructure, SaaS administration, endpoint management, employee support
• AI strategy: evaluating and building AI-powered solutions for clinical and operational impact

What you bring

• 8+ years in software engineering, with 3+ years leading engineering teams or technology orgs
• Experience as a Director of Technology, Head of Engineering, Engineering Manager, Principal Engineer, CTO, or similar
• Background in high-growth SaaS, healthcare technology, or digital health
• A track record of leading cross-functional technical initiatives
• Working knowledge across modern web frameworks, API and systems integration, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), relational and NoSQL databases, CI/CD and cloud-native architecture, security and compliance frameworks, and AI/LLM technologies
• Comfort writing and reviewing production code, not just reviewing decks
• The ability to talk to engineers and executives in the same afternoon without losing either one

Nice to have

• HIPAA, HITRUST, or SOC 2 experience
• Telehealth or behavioral health platform experience
• Startup or high-growth company experience
• Experience leading both Product and Engineering
• Experience shipping AI-powered solutions into production, not just piloting them

What success looks like in year one

Delivery gets more predictable. The platform gets more reliable and technical debt goes down. Our security and compliance posture gets stronger. AI capabilities expand across the org, not just as a proof of concept. And you've built an engineering team that wants to stay.

Why this role

You'll be building the technology backbone for a company whose growth is measured in families who finally got care. You'll have real ownership from day one, work alongside leaders who take both innovation and compliance seriously, and shape how technology and AI get used across the organization, not just in engineering.

Compensation & benefits

Competitive salary, commensurate with experience, plus annual performance bonus opportunity, medical, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off and company holidays, and professional development support.