Head of Engineering

Location: Australia

Workplace: remote

Employment Type: full

Description

We're looking for a Head of Engineering who's still close to the code.

You'll lead a small, high-autonomy team building a clinical genomics platform that powers end-to-end genetic testing and counselling for patients, clinicians, and healthcare partners.

About Eugene

Eugene is building a future where everyone can sequence their DNA once and receive personalised guidance for life, transforming genomics from a one-time diagnostic tool into a lifelong foundation for better health.

Since we launched in 2018, we’ve supported thousands of people across Australia, released an Australia first medicare-covered genetic test and are backed by Australian and US venture capital and strategic investors.

Eugene is a remote-first organisation, allowing you to work anywhere within Australia, or in-person at our office in Richmond, Victoria.

What you'll own

• Platform architecture and delivery. You're accountable for the technical direction of the product end-to-end — from infrastructure and data model through to the frontend experience. Our current stack is AWS Lambda (serverless), Laravel 12/PHP 8.4, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Next.js, and React.
• AI product delivery. We have a roadmap for LLM-based functionality and you’ll own how we get there.
• Technical roadmap. Translate business goals into incremental delivery plans that balance speed with sustainability. You'll work directly with the founders to make tradeoff decisions and sequence work against company priorities.
• Security, infrastructure, and compliance. We're SOC2 compliant and want to keep it that way. You'll own our compliance maintenance obligations and are accountable for our security posture and infrastructure reliability.
• Team leadership. Coach, unblock, and raise the bar for a small engineering team. Set the standards for code quality, review practices, and delivery cadence.

About you

• You've built and shipped software at a level where people trusted you with system-wide decisions — not just feature delivery.
• You have a strong sense of urgency without being reckless. You actively use AI-assisted development workflows and expect your team to do the same.
• You thrive in small teams where your work directly shapes the company's trajectory.
• You have experience with modern MVC frameworks and can reason across a full stack. Familiarity with our stack — Laravel 12/PHP 8.4, AWS serverless, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Next.js — is a bonus, not a requirement.
• You've shipped AI-powered features in production and have informed opinions about where LLM tooling is ready to trust and where it isn't.
• You communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders. You can translate complexity without dumbing it down.
• SOC2 or equivalent compliance and/or regulated environment experience is a plus.

Benefits

We offer a competitive compensation package in a collaborative and inclusive work environment. We value diverse perspectives and the ability to work cross-functionally. This role provides:

• The opportunity to work at a company committed to doing well by doing good.
• ESOP – Employee Stock Ownership Plan so you can grow with the company
• A competitive parental leave policy that provides support and flexibility for new parents.
• Challenging, meaningful problem solving that positively impacts our customers' lives.
• A yearly L&D budget to support your professional development and help you stay at the cutting edge of industry trends and technologies.
• A monthly wellness budget to encourage self-care and well-being, which we believe are key to maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
• A remote-first work environment.

Hiring process

Our hiring process includes:

• Phone screen
• Skills assessment
• Technical interview
• Culture interview

Our hiring process is intentionally designed to be simple, effective, and respectful of everyone's time.