Lead Software Engineer

Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid)

About NOCD

NOCD is the #1 telehealth provider for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is one of the most severe, prevalent, and misunderstood mental health conditions. NOCD creates access to online therapy for people with OCD through our telehealth platform. In the NOCD app, Members can quickly access and schedule live, face-to-face video therapy sessions with our national network of licensed Therapists that specialize in Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP) - considered the "gold standard" in OCD treatment.

At NOCD, we help people reclaim their lives with clinically proven OCD treatment, by removing barriers to OCD care, and reducing the stigma associated with OCD. We’re changing the world and need other like-minded individuals to accelerate and expand our efforts.

Opportunity Overview

NOCD is looking for a senior Product Engineer to help build the next generation of products that expand access to life-changing mental healthcare.

This is not a traditional feature-delivery role. We're looking for an engineer who thrives in ambiguity, enjoys building products from 0→1, and wants to shape both the technical architecture and product direction. You'll partner directly with Product, Design, AI, and Engineering leadership to turn ideas into production-ready experiences that can scale to millions of users.

You'll own products from concept through launch—rapidly prototyping, validating ideas, building full-stack applications, and evolving them into reliable, scalable systems.

If you've been one of the first engineers at a startup, built entirely new products, or enjoy wearing multiple hats while solving difficult product and technical challenges, we'd love to talk.

What You'll Do

Build New Products

• Design and build entirely new products from concept to production
• Translate ambiguous ideas into scalable software
• Rapidly prototype, validate, and iterate on new experiences
• Own products from initial architecture through launch

Full Stack Development

• Build modern backend services using Python
• Develop frontend experiences using React and TypeScript
• Design APIs and system architecture for new applications
• Write clean, maintainable, well-tested production code

Product Partnership

• Work directly with Product and Design to define customer problems
• Help prioritize what gets built, not just how it's built
• Balance speed, quality, and long-term scalability
• Make thoughtful tradeoffs while shipping quickly

Technical Leadership

• Influence architecture and engineering standards
• Mentor engineers through design reviews and collaboration
• Improve developer tooling and engineering velocity
• Help establish technical direction for new initiatives

Required Qualifications

• 8 years of professional software engineering experience
• Experience building products from 0→1 or joining products during their earliest stages
• Strong backend experience with Python
• Strong frontend experience with React and TypeScript
• Experience designing scalable APIs and distributed systems
• Experience building cloud-native applications on AWS
• Experience with relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Aurora)
• Experience working across the entire software development lifecycle
• Strong product intuition and ability to work through ambiguity
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across Engineering, Product, and Design
• Comfortable making technical decisions with incomplete information

Preferred Qualifications

• Startup or high-growth company experience
• Experience as a founding engineer or one of the first engineers on a product
• Experience building multi-tenant SaaS products
• Experience with AI-powered products or LLM integrations
• Infrastructure-as-Code experience (Terraform preferred)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitHub Actions
• Experience with analytics platforms (BigQuery, Metabase, etc.)
• Experience building products used directly by customers

What Success Looks Like

• Build scalable technical foundations for future engineering teams
• Improve engineering velocity through better tooling and architecture
• Help define product direction alongside leadership
• Deliver software that measurably improves the lives of NOCD members and clinicians

What We Offer

• Comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision coverage, and 401(k) match
• PTO based on an accrual system
• Casual and engaging startup environment with an outstanding mission-driven team atmosphere
• NOCD provides 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave for the primary caregiver, and 6 weeks of fully paid leave for the secondary caregiver, for qualifying full-time employees.

Compensation for this role ranges from $165,000-200,000 annually. Actual pay will be based on the individual’s qualifications and experience.