NeedTech Labs · 1 month ago
CTO & Co-Founder for BioTech Precision Nutrition Startup (No Salary, Equity Only, Pre-Seed)
United States
Full-time
Remote
Director/Executive
8+ years expNeedTech Labs is a stealth-mode precision nutrition and health optimization venture focused on innovative technology for individualized health guidance. The CTO & Co-Founder will lead the technical roadmap, overseeing the development of a federated learning platform that integrates various biological and clinical data to deliver personalized health interventions.
MarketplacePublishingSaaSOnline Portals
Hiring Manager
Shalom Daskal
Responsibilities
Own the end-to-end technical roadmap from MVP through production scale, spanning multi-omics data harmonization pipeline, federated learning infrastructure, reinforcement learning engine, and cloud-native digital health platform
Architect the multi-omics data integration layer: secure ingestion connectors for genome sequencing repositories (23andMe, AncestryDNA, Nebula, direct sequencing), microbiome data sources, epigenomic datasets, EHR integration via HL7 FHIR, wearable telemetry (Apple Health, Google Fit, Garmin, Whoop, Oura), CGM streams (Dexcom, Abbott Libre), and consumer behavior signals
Architect the data harmonization and feature extraction pipeline: ontology mapping (SNOMED, LOINC, RxNorm, HPO), genomic variant interpretation pipelines, microbiome taxonomic and functional profiling, and health state vector generation
Architect the federated learning framework: TensorFlow Federated, PySyft, NVIDIA FLARE, or equivalent — including federated averaging strategies, secure aggregation protocols, differential privacy pipelines, and cross-silo versus cross-device topology decisions appropriate to the multi-channel commercial model
Architect the reinforcement learning optimization engine: PPO or equivalent policy-gradient methods, reward function design tied to validated health outcomes, exploration-exploitation balance for safety-critical nutrition and exercise recommendations, and continuous model refinement against post-intervention outcome metrics
Lead the cloud-native platform architecture: AWS or Azure (HIPAA-eligible services), Kubernetes orchestration, Docker edge-node containers for on-device inference, Terraform IaC, multi-region deployment, and observability tooling
Lead security, privacy, and compliance engineering from inception: HIPAA architecture, GDPR Article 9 special category data compliance, SOC 2 Type II readiness, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 alignment, HITRUST certification roadmap, GINA compliance, and state-level genetic privacy frameworks
Drive the regulatory technical pathway in coordination with regulatory counsel: FDA Software as a Medical Device classification analysis, wellness-versus-medical-device technical delineation, AI/ML-enabled SaMD predetermined change control plan architecture, and EU AI Act high-risk system technical documentation
Drive IP execution in coordination with patent counsel: continuation filings, claim-chart development around the federated-multi-omics-reinforcement claim space, prior-art analysis against ZOE, Viome, InsideTracker, and adjacent patent estates, FTO assessment, and trade-secret architecture
Lead technical engagement with design-partner customers, clinical research partners, and pharmaceutical real-world-evidence collaborators
Build and lead the founding technical team across multi-omics bioinformatics, federated learning engineering, reinforcement learning, platform engineering, security engineering, clinical data science, and SRE — scaling to a 20+ engineer team through Series A
Serve as the principal technical voice in investor diligence, clinical partner technical due diligence, regulator engagement, and strategic partnership conversations
Qualification
Required
8+ years shipping production software in digital health, precision medicine, bioinformatics SaaS, or adjacent regulated health-tech categories
Direct production experience with multi-omics data pipelines — genomic, microbiome, epigenomic, or transcriptomic — at scale and with clinical-grade data integrity discipline. Research-only bioinformatics without production shipping experience is not qualified
Direct production experience with federated learning frameworks — TensorFlow Federated, PySyft, NVIDIA FLARE, Flower, or equivalent. Centralized ML backgrounds without genuine federated architecture experience are not qualified for this role
Direct production experience with reinforcement learning — PPO, A2C/A3C, SAC, or equivalent policy-gradient and actor-critic methods, ideally including reward shaping and safety-constrained RL in real-world decisioning systems
Demonstrable architectural fluency across HIPAA-compliant cloud-native infrastructure: AWS (HIPAA-eligible services) or Azure equivalent, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and edge-to-cloud inference architecture
Direct experience with health data interoperability standards: HL7 FHIR, SNOMED CT, LOINC, RxNorm, and the operational realities of EHR integration
Working experience with differential privacy, secure aggregation, and the cryptographic primitives underlying federated learning at production scale
Direct experience navigating health data compliance: HIPAA architectural implementation, GDPR Article 9, SOC 2 Type II, and ideally HITRUST certification
Zero-to-one leadership track record: a prior CTO, founding engineer, or technical lead role at a digital health or precision medicine venture, taking technology from architectural design through production deployment
Graduate degree (Ph.D. preferred) in computer science, bioinformatics, computational biology, machine learning, biomedical engineering, or a directly adjacent field
Preferred
Prior exit (acquisition or IPO) as a technical founder or early technical leader in digital health, precision medicine, or precision nutrition — Livongo, Omada Health, ZOE, InsideTracker, 23andMe, Color Health, Helix, Nebula Genomics, Viome, or comparable lineage particularly valued
Direct operating experience inside a tier-one digital health, genomics, biotech, or pharma corporate (Verily, Calico, Tempus, Flatiron Health, Foundation Medicine, Illumina, 10x Genomics, Roche, Novartis, AstraZeneca, GSK)
Named inventor on granted patents in federated learning, multi-omics integration, digital therapeutics, or AI-driven health decisioning
Published or patent-cited record in Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, Cell Systems, Genome Medicine, NeurIPS, ICML, ML4H, or equivalent venues
Hands-on experience with FDA Software as a Medical Device technical submissions, including AI/ML-enabled SaMD predetermined change control plans
Familiarity with the microbiome science landscape: 16S rRNA, shotgun metagenomics, functional metagenomics, and the practical limitations of current microbiome-to-phenotype inference
Operating familiarity with CGM data architectures (Dexcom Clarity, Abbott LibreView), wearable SDK integration economics, and the realities of high-frequency biometric data ingestion at consumer scale
Experience with safety-constrained reinforcement learning in regulated decisioning contexts — particularly relevant given the safety implications of automated nutrition and exercise recommendations
Benefits
Co-Founder equity. Material, vesting on standard terms with appropriate cliff and acceleration.
No salary at pre-seed stage. Cash compensation reviewed and instated at institutional close.
Founder-level participation in subsequent funding rounds.
Company
NeedTech Labs
NeedTech Labs is an AI-first venture platform that aims to revolutionize startup development.
2-10 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageLeadership Team
Daniel Katz
Co-Founder & CEO
Shalom Daskal
Chairman Co-Founder NeedTech Labs
Company data provided by crunchbase