Engineering Manager (Data Safety)

Headway•New York, NY

1d•$222,800 - $278,500•Remote

About The Position

Headway's mission is to build a new mental healthcare system that everyone can access. The data we hold to do that is some of the most sensitive there is: what someone said in therapy. Data Safety is the team that makes it possible to learn from that data without putting the people in it at risk. As Engineering Manager for Data Safety, you'll lead that team. Protecting patient data is Headway's first priority, ahead of any roadmap, and that is not a slogan here: it is the constraint every other team designs around. Your job is to turn that constraint into something people can build on rather than something they route around. The upside is enormous. With tens of thousands of providers and millions of sessions, Headway holds what is very likely the richest picture of real mental health care anywhere in the world. Remarkably little is known at scale about which care helps whom, and we are sitting on the data that could answer it. The blocker has never been curiosity, it is having a safe way in. The core of that is de-identification: removing the person from the record while keeping the clinical signal, and getting the method certified so the whole company can rely on it. You'll grow and mentor a team of roughly five to eight engineers, set the roadmap for the pod, and work closely with Security, Legal, Compliance, Data, and the product teams that depend on you. The bar is high. We have to be able to stand behind how we handle this data to a regulator, to a payer, and to the patient it came from. Get that right and what your team ships sets the ceiling on how much Headway can learn, and on how many people we can help.

Requirements

3+ years of engineering management experience at a high-growth startup or scale-up
4+ years of experience as a software engineer, enough to hold technical direction credibly
A track record of building and leading high-performing teams that delivered business outcomes through technical investment
A strong product mindset and cross-functional relationships that build trust with users and stakeholders
Experience shipping under real compliance or audit pressure, with the scope discipline that requires
Comfort with data platform and privacy systems: access control, data classification, pipelines, and de-identification

Nice To Haves

healthcare, financial services, or another regulated, high-trust domain
HIPAA de-identification, tokenisation, differential privacy, or data governance tooling
prior experience with Python, React, and AWS infrastructure

Responsibilities

Lead, manage, and grow the Data Safety engineering team
Own delivery on privacy and compliance commitments, including their audit evidence
Set the technical and operational roadmap across de-identification, data access tiers, entitlements, and LLM data handling
Develop your team through weekly 1:1s, mentorship, and direct feedback, and grow a tech-lead layer beneath you
Partner closely with Security, Privacy and Compliance, Legal, Data Platform, and product pods to move quickly and safely
Contribute to the broader group and company strategy, not just your own roadmap

Benefits

Equity Compensation
Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
HSA / FSA
401K
Work-from-Home Stipend
Therapy Reimbursement
16-week parental leave for eligible employees
Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
Flexible PTO
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Training and professional development