---
title: 'Commercial Tech Lead at Fortell'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-tech-lead-fortell-new-york-1nar7m3737wa'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-10'
---

# Commercial Tech Lead at Fortell

- **Company:** Fortell
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-11-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/fortell/6d387b71-eab4-4ff6-bd57-393988f1d321

## Job description

Fortell is designing better hearing aids for life as it's meant to be heard. Traditional hearing aids make everything louder but they don't do enough to help the brain separate conversation from noise. Fortell uses a custom AI chip to separate speech from noise in real time, amplifying the important speech and attenuating the noise. We are backed by Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Optum Ventures, Lux Capital, Vast Ventures, Good Friends, Positive Sum, Stonecroft, and Atreides Management. Our debut product is available now at Fortell Audiology on Park Avenue and 61st Street.

## The Role

- We are looking for a ninja to join our product team. Working closely with our VP of Product, you will help ensure our commercial technology can support our rapid expansion. You will have a heavy hand in priority tradeoffs, and ensure we create the world’s best experience for engaging with Fortell.
- You've shipped products where software was a core part of the experience, and you greatly improved the experience from where it was when you started working on it.
- You're as comfortable in the technical weeds as you are driving high level strategy and you bring deep intuition for what it takes to make products people love.
- You also move fast. We intend to iterate faster than any other hardware/software startup, and we need PMs and engineers who are creative problem-solvers committed to making sure software will never be the long pole in the schedule.

## What You'll Do

- Build and execute on the roadmap for the commercial experience, from conception through capability launch.
- Find the problems worth solving. Some will come from patients, some from our audiologists, and some from analysis deep in the data.
- Design the experience, then work through implementation with the team. You'll make the calls on scope and sequencing, and you'll be the one explaining the tradeoffs.
- Spend real time with the clinics. Our audiologists are up the street. Many ideas will come from being hands on with them.
- Instrument what you ship and be honest about the results. Know which number should move, what could quietly get worse, and what you'd do about it.
- Build for where we're going. Scale will be critical.

## What We're Looking For

- Experience building software products deep in the weeds.
- You reason from evidence. You can pick up a messy set of numbers, work out what they actually say, and notice when they don't say as much as everyone hopes.
- You can hold a constraint and a user need in your head at once. A lot of this job is figuring out what to do when what a patient wants and how a clinic works don't line up, and neither side gets to simply win.
- Technical enough to be useful. You don't need to be an engineer, but you should be comfortable in an API contract, able to tell a hard engineering problem from an expensive-sounding one, and willing to ask until you understand.
- You write clearly. Most of the leverage in this role is a well-argued document that gets six people pointed the same way.
- You'd rather ship something narrow and learn from it than spend a quarter getting it perfect.

## Nice to Have

- Experience in medical devices, healthcare, audiology, or another regulated space where getting it wrong has real consequences.
- You've worked on a product where hardware and software have to agree with each other.
- You've built internal or operational tooling and know how much leverage sits there.

#LI-Hybrid

## About Fortell

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Fortell builds AI-powered hearing aids that use custom silicon and advanced signal processing to clarify speech in noisy environments, helping people understand more of what they hear.
- **Entity Type**: Private (backed by prominent venture capital firms)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Matthew de Jonge (CEO), Andrew Casper (CTO), Igor (last name not publicly available), Cole (last name not publicly available)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Medical device manufacturing (hearing aids), artificial intelligence, healthtech
- **Target customers**: B2C – individuals with hearing loss, especially those who struggle with speech comprehension in noise; also works with audiologists and clinics
- **Mission statement**: "To restore effortless connection through better hearing."

## Products & Services
- **Fortell AI Hearing Aids**: A hardware + software product featuring custom AI chips that separate speech from background noise in real time. The device is fitted and programmed through Fortell’s own audiology clinics (first clinic at 530 Park Ave, New York, NY). The product is marketed as a medical device and is available only after a personalized hearing evaluation and fitting by an audiologist.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding amount not disclosed; backed by Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Valor Equity Partners, Optum Ventures, Lux Capital, Vast Ventures, Good Friends, Positive Sum, Stonecroft, and Atreides Management.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Valor Equity Partners (lead investors); advisors include Dr. Barbara Weinstein (Professor of Audiology, NYU), Dr. Kevin Franck (former Chair, Hearing Loss Association of America), Dr. Matt Fitzgerald (Stanford), Dr. Jan Blustein (NYU School of Medicine).
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - 52 employees (LinkedIn) with +1.6% monthly headcount growth
  - 15 active job postings (as of mid-2025), with a 200% monthly increase and 1400% quarterly increase in postings
  - First clinic in New York City; planning to expand to multiple major U.S. cities (e.g., Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Bay Area; Boston; Greenwich, CT)
  - Clinical trials show 50x more words understood vs. leading AI hearing aid in challenging noise; 95% of participants preferred Fortell over 5 top-spec competitors

## Competitive Advantages
- **Custom AI silicon**: Proprietary chips designed specifically for real-time speech separation, not just amplification.
- **Clinical validation**: Randomized controlled trials overseen by external academics demonstrating significant improvement in speech comprehension.
- **Integrated clinic model**: Direct-to-consumer fitting and support through owned audiology clinics, ensuring proper tuning and customer satisfaction.
- **Strong investor syndicate**: Backing from top-tier VCs (Thrive, Founders Fund, Valor) provides credibility and resources.

## Strategic Focus
- **Clinic expansion**: Opening new clinics across the U.S. to increase accessibility.
- **Talent acquisition**: Aggressively hiring across engineering (firmware, DSP, AI, hardware), audiology, quality, supply chain, and operations.
- **Product refinement**: Continuous improvement of AI algorithms and hardware based on real-world feedback and clinical data.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as fast-moving, intentional, and mission-driven. Emphasis on cutting-edge science, human-centered design, and improving lives at scale.
- **Work environment**: Hybrid roles available (e.g., Firmware Engineer listed as hybrid on Built In). Office located in New York City with free lunch.
- **Compensation & benefits**: Competitive salary and stock options; top-notch healthcare for employee and family; free lunch; generous paid time off; 401(k) plan; parental leave.
- **Engineering culture**: Opportunity to work on custom silicon, AI/ML, DSP, and hardware in a startup environment with strong scientific backing. Team includes pioneers from Google, Butterfly Network, Mount Sinai, and other top organizations.

## Sources
1. [Fortell.com – Homepage](https://www.fortell.com/)
2. [Fortell.com – About Us](https://www.fortell.com/about-us)
3. [Fortell.com – Careers](https://www.fortell.com/careers)
4. [LinkedIn – Fortell Research Inc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/fortell-research)
5. [Built In – Fortell Research Inc Jobs](https://builtin.com/company/fortell-research-inc/jobs)

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