Head of Technology Digital Public Health Program

About The Organisation

The Antara Foundation (TAF) envisions a world where women and children do not suffer from preventable health conditions. We believe that every mother and each child deserves an equal start to a healthy life. We support the public health system deliver solutions at scale, to improve maternal and child health outcomes, by partnering with government and communities. Interventions of The Antara Foundation follow two closely integrated paths: to help the government system deliver better quality health care to the community and to support the community to mobilize and seek better health outcomes.

For more information visit www.antarafoundation.org

About The Digital Public Health Program

TAF's Digital Public Health Program (DPHP) is building the next generation of scalable, interoperable digital health systems, combining conversational AI, WhatsApp-based workflow automation, data pipelines, and decision-support tools. These systems are designed for real-world, low-resource settings and aim to support frontline workers and health systems in delivering timely, high-quality care.

We are an early-stage but rapidly scaling team, building at the intersection of public health, technology, and behaviour change. This requires individuals who can take ownership, solve problems independently, learn quickly, and operate comfortably in ambiguity while shaping evolving systems.

Role Overview

The Head of Technology is the most senior technical role in the organisation and will build, own, and run TAF's entire engineering function. Beyond technology ownership, this role is accountable for engineering delivery across TAF's digital product portfolio, ensuring products move efficiently from concept and pilot to production deployment and scale. You will set up and own the full technology stack, establish engineering culture and practices, lead and grow the in-house team, and ensure that everything TAF builds is production-grade, field-ready, and maintainable at scale.

You will be the technical authority that the CSO, Product Lead, and external partners rely on. You will hold our AI research and engineering partners accountable to delivery standards, lead architecture decisions, and translate complex technical realities into language that programme leadership and government stakeholders can act on.

This is a player-coach role. You will spend more time leading and shaping than writing code, but you will have the depth to review any deliverable, challenge any design decision, and step in when it matters. If you have built engineering functions from early stages, shipped production systems that real users in constrained environments depend on, and want to apply that experience to a public health challenge that matters at scale, we would love to hear from you.

What You Will Do

Build and Own the Engineering Function

• Set up and own TAF's full technology stack end-to-end: cloud infrastructure (GCP), data pipelines, AI/ML layer, WhatsApp and voice interfaces, APIs, DevOps, and security, in a way that is scalable, documented, and can be built upon by others.
• Own engineering execution against agreed product roadmaps and delivery commitments, translating product strategy into technical roadmaps, milestones, resourcing plans, and measurable outcomes.
• Lead all architecture and infrastructure decision-making, balancing technical excellence, delivery timelines, organizational priorities, and field realities across the product portfolio.
• Ensure products are delivered with speed, reliability, and maintainability, with the stack optimized for low-bandwidth, low-connectivity, and multilingual field environments.
• Establish engineering standards, code review practices, documentation norms, and quality benchmarks that hold across in-house and partner-built systems.
• Anticipate technical debt and systemic risks before they become problems, and make pragmatic decisions on build-vs-configure and make-vs-partner tradeoffs.
  
  

Lead and Grow the Engineering Team

• Lead engineering hiring, onboarding, performance management, and capability development as the team scales.
• Directly manage the in-house engineering team with clear expectations, regular feedback, and high accountability.
• Actively mentor engineers, investing in their technical depth and professional growth, not just their task output.
• Define team structures, role profiles, and capability needs as the engineering function grows with the program.
• Create a culture of ownership, accountability, rapid learning, and execution excellence.
  
  

Hold External Partners Accountable

• Serve as the primary technical authority in relationships with external AI research and engineering partners, including academic institutions.
• Review, evaluate, and challenge technical deliverables: architecture proposals, codebases, models, APIs, against production-grade standards and program requirements.
• Manage Statements of Work, delivery milestones, and technical reviews, ensuring accountability without micromanagement.
• Make informed decisions on when to accept, push back on, or restructure partner deliverables.
• Evaluate opportunities to transition strategic capabilities from external partners into sustainable in-house engineering capacity over time.
  
  

Integrate Across Product and Programme

• Partner with the Product Lead to prioritize technical investments, make roadmap trade-offs, and ensure engineering effort is aligned with user and program impact.
• Work closely with the Product Lead and Product Managers to translate program and user requirements into sound technical designs, ensuring field realities are built in from the start.
• Establish predictable engineering processes that provide visibility into delivery timelines, risks, dependencies, and resource requirements.
• Lead technical planning for digital pilots, new product development, and integrations with the government's public health and nutrition systems (ABDM, RCH/JANANI, ANMOL, Poshan Tracker, and HMIS) where TAF's products need to connect with or feed into national infrastructure.
• Represent the technology function credibly with government counterparts, donors, and institutional partners where technical authority is required.
• Support grant proposals, partner SOW reviews, and donor reporting with technically sound and accurate inputs.
  
  

Experience & Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience building and shipping production-grade digital systems, with significant depth in full-stack, backend, or platform engineering, including at least 3 years leading engineering teams.
• Demonstrated experience building or significantly scaling an engineering function: setting up infrastructure, establishing team culture, and owning the full stack in a resource-constrained environment.
• Proven track record of directly managing and mentoring engineers. This is a non-negotiable requirement at this level.
• Strong command of system architecture, API design, data pipelines, DevOps practices, and security fundamentals.
• Experience building, integrating, or operating AI-enabled products in production environments.
• Experience technically overseeing external engineering vendors or research partners, reviewing architecture, managing deliverables, and holding teams to a standard.
• Prior experience in a resource-constrained environment: early-stage startup, GovTech, social enterprise, or nonprofit, where judgment under ambiguity and ownership across the stack were required.
  
  

Preferred

• Hands-on familiarity with India's government digital health infrastructure: ABDM APIs, FHIR R4, RCH/JANANI, ANMOL, or HMIS, gained through direct integration or product work, not vendor implementation.
• Experience with WhatsApp-based platforms, conversational AI systems, or ASR-LLM-TTS pipelines.
• Demonstrated ownership of products or platforms from inception through deployment and scale, including technical design, delivery management, and operational responsibility.
• Prior work with NHM, state health departments, or digital health organizations in a technical capacity.
• Understanding of data privacy and consent frameworks relevant to health data in India.
  
  

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Equivalent experience with a demonstrable portfolio of production systems and team leadership will also be considered.
  
  

Success in the first 12 months

Within the first 12 months, the Head of Technology will be expected to:

• Build and lead a high-performing engineering team with clear ownership, strong practices, and a culture of accountability.
• Establish scalable engineering practices, documentation standards, and deployment processes across the full stack.
• Successfully deliver and maintain multiple production systems used by frontline health workers and program teams.
• Create clear visibility into engineering delivery, technical risks, and resource requirements for organizational leadership.
• Build a maintainable and scalable technology platform capable of supporting TAF's expanding digital health portfolio across states.
• Reduce dependency on external engineering partners where strategically appropriate, by building in-house capability.
  
  

Who We Are Looking For

• Builders who take full ownership of the stack, the team, and the standard, and do not wait to be told what needs fixing.
• Leaders who develop engineers as seriously as they develop systems, and who understand that the quality of the team is as important as the quality of the code.
• Technically authoritative but pragmatic, able to make sound decisions under uncertainty, without over-engineering, and comfortable revisiting decisions when the evidence demands it.
• Strong communicators who can translate technical complexity for non-technical stakeholders across programme leadership, government, and donors, and who can hold their own in a room with both engineers and health system administrators.
• Comfortable operating in highly ambiguous environments where product requirements, government priorities, and technical constraints evolve simultaneously.
• Motivated by mission: genuine belief in the role of technology in strengthening public health systems for underserved communities and energized by the complexity of building in that context.
  
  

We are committed to building a thoughtful and diverse team across roles and levels, and encourage candidates with varied backgrounds and perspectives to apply.