Director of Engineering

WHO WE ARE

At Pennant, our culture is our competitive advantage. We support a growing network of independently operated healthcare companies while empowering local leaders to make a meaningful impact in the communities they serve. And we are proud to be affiliated with the Pennant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PNTG).

Our unique Service Center model provides resources and expertise across areas such as IT, HR, clinical, legal, and compliance, while giving our leaders freedom within a framework to make decisions, take ownership, and lead their teams.

Our culture is grounded in our CAPLICO values: Celebration, Accountability, Passion for Learning, Love One Another, Intelligent Risk Taking, Customer Second, and Ownership. These aren't just words on a wall. They shape how we work, grow leaders, solve problems, and support one another.

If you're looking for a place where your ideas matter, you're encouraged to take ownership, and you can grow alongside passionate people, Pennant may be the place for you. You can learn more about The Pennant Group at www.pennantgroup.com

JOB SUMMARY 

Pennant Services is seeking an experienced, hands-on Director of Engineering to lead the Application Development team that builds products for our post-acute businesses (home health, hospice, home care, and senior living). 

Reporting to the Senior Vice President of Digital, the Director of Engineering leads how software is built at Pennant: the architecture, delivery system, people, and AI-native engineering practice that lets a small team deliver like a large one. The team already uses AI coding agents extensively and integrates with HCHB, Snowflake, Twilio, and Microsoft Entra ID; and many others. The ideal candidate has led a development team through the AI shift at a startup or growth-stage company, has architecture judgment they can defend, and understands the importance of speed, reliability, security, and responsiveness in a healthcare setting. 

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES  

Architecture & Platform 

• Own the technical direction of all digital products: service boundaries, data model, integration patterns, and the platform roadmap 

• Support build / buy / defer decisions and document them with the technical tradeoffs and reversal cost 

• Set and enforce standards for HIPAA-grade engineering: PHI handling, audit logging, least-privilege access, and environment promotion from sandbox through production 

• Keep the platform operable: observability, on-call, incident response, and cost management 

AI-Native Engineering Practice 

• Make AI coding agents the default for design, implementation, testing, and review; remove the barriers that keep engineers from using them well 

• Build the harnesses that make agent output trustworthy: evaluation suites, automated test generation, CI gates, and review standards 

• Measure delivery (cycle time, change failure rate, defects reaching the field, cost per release) and report where AI helps and where it hurts 

• Partner with the Data Science team on how predictive models and LLM features ship into clinical workflows safely 

Team Leadership & Delivery 

• Lead, mentor, and develop the development team: weekly 1:1s, clear expectations, performance reviews, career paths, and early action on underperformance 

• Recruit, hire, and retain strong engineers; own the interview loop and raise the bar with every hire 

• Grow output per engineer through tooling and automation before growing headcount; if you roll your eyes at this, do not apply. 

Partnership & Representation 

• Represent Application Development with clinical, operations, finance, and IT leaders; translate business priorities into engineering plans and engineering constraints into business terms 

• Partner with Product Management, Data, Infrastructure and others to insure the success of Digital's products.  

• Participate in pilot and rollout conversations with field agencies and operational partners 

• Partner with IT on shared environments, security review, identity, and the boundary between the application platform and enterprise infrastructure 

• Contribute to technical strategy and investment cases, including measuring the team's impact on Pennant outcomes 

JOB REQUIREMENTS (Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities)  

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years leading engineers as a people manager (1:1s, performance reviews, hiring, and difficult staffing decisions) 

• Led engineering at a startup or growth-stage company through the adoption of AI-assisted development, with measurable before-and-after results (cycle time, release frequency, defect rate, or output at flat headcount) 

• Personally built and shipped production software with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or equivalent) within the past 6 months 

• Designed and operated a multi-service, cloud-hosted system with a production data layer and third-party integrations 

• Established a quality system (CI/CD, automated testing, code review standards, incident response) rather than inheriting one 

• Experience working under HIPAA, SOC 2, or comparable controls, or a credible plan for standing up PHI handling, audit logging, and access control in new and existing platforms 

• Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to clinical, operational, and finance leaders 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Healthcare operations or EHR integration experience (HCHB, Epic, eCW, WellSky, FHIR / HL7) 

• Built or ran an AI harness layer: evaluation suites, agent skills, validation frameworks, or an internal AI developer platform 

• Shipped LLM-backed features to end users and evaluated them for accuracy and safety in production 

• Migrated a product off a low-code or rapid-prototyping platform (e.g., Retool) onto a durable stack without stopping delivery 

• Experience with Go, TypeScript / SvelteKit, Kubernetes (AKS), Snowflake, Temporal, Azure, and Microsoft Entra ID 

• Experience working alongside data scientists and data engineers on a shared platform (Dataiku, Snowflake, dbt, or similar) 

• Experience inside a larger company's internal product group after time at a startup 

Reports To: SVP, Digital 

Location: Remote – Western US (Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones) 

Travel: Approx. 10–15%, including periodic visits to Service Centers and field operations | Full-Time 

Compensation: Variable depending on experience and location; eligible for annual bonus and equity 

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

Pennant Services is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and consider qualified applicants for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the application and employment process.

JOB DESCRIPTION DISCLAIMER

This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed in this position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. Responsibilities and requirements may change based on business needs.