Product Engineer

About Pelago

Pelago is a virtual clinic focused on helping people manage substance use, including tobacco, alcohol, and opioid use. Its care model supports members across the spectrum, from unhealthy habits to active substance use disorders, with treatment personalized to each person’s health profile, habits, genetics, and goals. The platform offers a range of services such as education, cognitive behavioral therapy, and medication-assisted treatment, and helps employers and health plans provide treatment that is easier to access, more affordable, and more effective.

The company has supported hundreds of employers and health plans and has helped more than 750,000 members improve how they manage substance use. Pelago recently completed a Series C funding round and has raised over $151 million from global investors.

About the Engineering Team

Pelago’s engineering organization works as a group of empowered problem-solvers who partner closely with product, design, data, and clinical teams to improve member outcomes at scale. The team is deliberately shifting its development lifecycle so engineers spend less time on repetitive implementation and more time on system design, judgment, and impact as AI changes how software is built.

How the Team Works

• Engineers are expected to solve outcomes and problems, not simply complete a list of features; success is judged by learning, impact, and results.
• AI is used throughout the software development lifecycle to speed up building, testing, and review, while engineers focus on intent, validation, and resilient design.
• Teams have substantial ownership, and that autonomy comes with accountability for quality, safety, and delivery.
• Work is highly cross-functional, with shared responsibility across Product, Design, Data, and Clinical teams for discovery, experimentation, and execution.
• Because the product operates in a regulated, member-facing domain, reliability, observability, and correctness are treated as essential.

What You’ll Own

• Take full ownership of important problem areas from discovery through delivery and ongoing iteration.
• Design and improve systems that support safe, scalable, AI-augmented software development.
• Use data and experimentation to confirm whether solutions are actually effective.
• Work with cross-functional partners to balance member impact, clinical constraints, and technical trade-offs.
• Help shape the engineering culture, tools, processes, and ways of working.

Role Overview

This position is for a Product Engineer who can take responsibility for meaningful problems end-to-end in a behavioral health environment where software decisions directly affect member health. The role sits within an AI-native, outcome-oriented team and requires someone who can work across the stack, use AI tooling effectively, and make thoughtful decisions where safety, privacy, and reliability matter as much as speed.

This is a hybrid role with three days per week in the New York City office.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead product areas from early problem framing and prototyping through production launch and iterative improvement.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, data, and clinical teams to create solutions that improve both member outcomes and business performance.
• Build secure, well-tested, and observable software across backend, frontend, and data-related surfaces.
• Use feedback, experimentation, and product data to evaluate shipped work and guide follow-up improvements.
• Work independently in uncertain environments while communicating effectively across globally distributed teams and functions.
• Make balanced decisions involving speed, safety, code quality, and long-term maintainability in a regulated setting.
• Strengthen engineering practices such as AI-native development, testing, documentation, knowledge sharing, and review quality.

Background Sought

• Proven experience building production software in a startup or scale-up environment.
• Strong command of TypeScript and Node.js, with comfort working across APIs, services, data, and cloud infrastructure.
• Good product intuition, with the ability to begin from user or business needs rather than only implementation details.
• Ability to operate with independence in ambiguous situations and make sensible trade-offs with limited information.
• Strong instincts around testing, observability, and system reliability.
• Comfort using AI-supported engineering workflows while still applying human judgment and careful QA.

Nice to Have

• Experience in healthcare, digital health, or other regulated software environments where safety matters.
• Exposure to event-driven systems, serverless AWS, relational database design, and infrastructure as code.
• Experience with experimentation, analytics, and product or growth instrumentation.
• Background in contributing to both backend systems and user-facing product experiences.
• Experience shipping products from zero to one in an early-stage company.

Additional Information

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position at this time.

Pelago offers accommodations during the interview process for candidates who request them. If accommodations are needed at any stage, candidates should contact their recruiter.

Pelago also publishes writing on technical choices, product philosophy, and the challenges of scaling behavioral health. The company encourages interested candidates to review that material before applying.

Compensation

The base pay range for this full-time U.S. role is USD 190,000 to USD 215,000. The stated range is part of a broader total compensation package that may include an incentive bonus program, stock options, comprehensive benefits, and incentive pay where applicable. Actual pay within the range will depend on factors such as relevant experience, education, internal equity, and other business considerations. Pelago reviews total compensation at least twice per year.