The posting
1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but most providers don't accept insurance, making therapy too expensive for most people. Headway’s mission is to fix this by building a new mental healthcare system everyone can access. We started by solving the biggest barrier to care: insurance. The admin work - credentialing, claims, payment reconciliation - is a nightmare. We've automated that.
But we're going further. Over 90,000 providers across all 50 states run their practice on our software, serving over 2.6 million patients. We are building the best tools for therapists to run their entire practice, reimagining the experience of finding a therapist, and investing in the platform foundations to enable this at scale, and building much of it with AI. We aren't just a billing layer; we are becoming the platform where care actually happens.
We're a Series D company with $325M+ in funding (a16z, Accel, Spark Capital, etc.), looking for exceptional people to help us achieve this mission. We want your time here to be the most meaningful experience of your career. Join us, and help change mental healthcare for the better.
Headway's mission is a big one – to build a new mental health care system everyone can access. We've built technology that helps people find great therapists with the first software-enabled national network of providers accepting insurance.
1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but the majority of providers don't accept insurance, making therapy too expensive for most people. Headway is building a new mental healthcare system that everyone can access by making it easy for therapists to accept insurance and scale their practice.
Headway was founded in 2019. Since then, we've grown into a diverse, national network of over 60,000 mental healthcare providers across all 50 states who run their practice on our software and have served over 1 million patients. We're a Series D company with over $325m in funding from a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Accel, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Spark Capital, Thrive Capital, Forerunner Ventures and Health Care Service Corporation.
We want your time here to be the most meaningful experience of your career. Join us, and help change mental healthcare for the better.
ABOUT ENGINEERING AT HEADWAY
Building a new mental healthcare system at Headway is only possible because of the scale and leverage that software can provide. The engineering team at Headway is a small but mighty team using technology to build that future (and have a fun time while doing it!).
PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE US:
- Focus on the mission: We view software as a means of effecting change in the world, not as an end unto itself. We write software to empower our patients and therapists to better solve the problems they're facing.
- Ship small, learn fast: We are building new and novel products and believe that we learn what our users need by quickly shipping and iterating.
- Everything is a product: Whether it's our patient search experience or a developer productivity improvement, we treat everything we build at Headway as a product with end-users in mind.
- Optimize for trust: We believe that engineers should be continually learning. To learn effectively and to be productive, engineers must feel safe asking questions and discussing mistakes.
TOOLS WE USE:
- Languages: Python 3, TypeScript
- Libraries & Frameworks: FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, React, Remix, Next.js
- Datastores: Postgres, Redis
- Infrastructure: AWS (Fargate, ECS, S3, SageMaker and more), Spark and Kafka
- Monitoring: Datadog, PagerDuty, Sentry
- Version Control: Github
- Vulnerability Management: Snyk, Semgrep
- Cloud Security: Lacework
About New Verticals at Headway
Most people don't find a therapist by typing into a search bar. They ask their doctor, check their insurance card, or pick up the phone. New Verticals builds those front doors. When a doctor tells a patient "you should talk to someone," we want Headway to be the next step. When someone looks for care in their insurer's directory, we want them to find it and book it. When someone calls, we want them to get booked on that call.
These channels already carry a large and growing share of Headway's new patients, and most of what they could be is still unbuilt. We are early, and the team you lead will decide what this becomes.
About this role
You'll lead the engineers behind our referral, payer and phone channels, and own the bets that open the next one. You'll partner daily with two product managers, data science, and operations, and you'll work directly with health systems and insurers who move on their own timelines. You'll report to the head of Patient Engineering, with room to grow the org as new channels come online.
What you'll do
- Grow the channels that bring patients to Headway through doctors, insurers, and the phone.
- Take new channels from zero to one: find the signal, ship fast, scale what works, and stop what doesn't.
- Build AI into how patients are referred, routed, and booked, so getting started takes minutes, not days.
- Lead and grow a team of engineers who own outcomes, not tickets.
- Make it easy for partners to work with us, and hard for them to work with anyone else.
Who you are
- You've built something from nothing, and you like the stage where it's messy.
- You find a way when the plan breaks, the partner slips, or the answer isn't in the docs.
- Product, ops, and partners trust you, and you can get a hard tradeoff decided.
- You want to manage. Hiring, coaching, and setting the bar are the job, not a tax on it.
Experience we're seeking
- 4+ years managing engineers, with a track record of hiring and developing them.
- 5+ years building production software.
- Experience launching or growing an acquisition, distribution, or partner channel.
- Bonus: healthcare, payer, or health system integrations; voice or conversational AI; B2B2C products.
You'll love this role if you want to
- Own the paths that bring people into care for the first time.
- Build new channels, not maintain old ones.
- See your team's work show up as real patients booking with a therapist.
Our Interview Process
A conversation with our recruiting team, then a hiring manager interview and a system design session. Next come interviews on people leadership, product sense, and peer leadership, plus a hands-on AI coding exercise. The process ends with a conversation with our CTO, followed by reference calls.
Compensation and Benefits:
The expected base pay range for this position is $265,200 - 314,925 based on a variety of factors including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for performance-based variable compensation and an equity grant, depending on the position and level.
We are committed to offering a comprehensive and competitive total rewards package, including robust health and wellness benefits, retirement savings, and meaningful ownership opportunities through equity. Compensation decisions are made holistically, ensuring fairness and alignment with market benchmarks while recognizing individual contributions and potential.
Benefits offered include:
- Equity Compensation
- Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
- HSA / FSA
- 401(k) match
- Therapy Reimbursement
- 18-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
COMPREHENSIVE BENEFITS:
Medical, dental, vision, HSA/FSA, 401(k) including match for 2027!, Carrot Fertility reimbursement, and paid parental, medical and caregiver leave.
We believe a team's strength is in its people, and we cannot achieve this mission without a team that reflects the diversity of this problem – across race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, national origin, religion, family status, disability, military status, and experience. Headway is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Headway will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please inform the recruiter when they contact you to schedule your interview.
Headway participates in E-Verify. To learn more, click here. https://www.e-verify.gov/sites/default/files/everify/posters/EVerifyParticipationPoster.pdf
A notice to Headway applicants: To protect yourself against phishing and recruitment fraud, please note that Headway only accepts applications through our official careers page at https://headway.co/careers. Headway will never refer you to external websites, ask for payment or personal information, or conduct interviews via messaging apps. All official communication will come from a @findheadway.com http://findheadway.com email address. If you are contacted by someone claiming to be from Headway via an unofficial channel, please do not share any information and report it as spam.
