---
title: 'Staff Software Engineer - Backend at Leona Health'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-backend-leona-health-san-francisco-dnkgj4jp0ecy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Staff Software Engineer - Backend at Leona Health

- **Company:** Leona Health
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2025-07-14
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/leona/1ad5b1c3-4baf-428d-83bc-bf08e68e0416

## Job description

## About Us

Leona is on a mission to empower everyone to take the best care of themselves, their patients, and their loved ones. We have an ambitious goal: to transform the way the world interacts with healthcare, because where you live shouldn't determine the quality of care you receive.

For patients, managing your health should feel empowering, not intimidating. For doctors, we want to eliminate the administrative noise so you can focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional care. We're reimagining what it looks like for doctors to care for patients in an AI-first world — starting with a platform that streamlines doctor-patient communication via WhatsApp, acting as an AI clinical assistant that automates non-urgent tasks, surfaces what's urgent, and gives patients the convenience of reaching their care team 24/7.

With bases in San Francisco and Mexico City, our team brings together years of experience scaling companies like Uber, Rappi, Modern Fertility, and Wonder across the US and Latin America. We're backed by a16z, General Catalyst, and Accel, and a remarkable group of angels including the founders of Nubank, Rappi, and Maven Clinic.

If you're hungry to build 0-to-1, and roll up your sleeves to make magic, thrive in ambiguity, and care deeply about building a better future, this role might be the perfect fit for you.

Tech challenge

We’re looking for an experienced software engineer to help us shape and scale Leona. Leona is reimagining how the world interacts with care — starting with doctor-patient communication on WhatsApp. We are building an an AI-powered platform that automates clinical workflows to empower doctors to save time, reduce burnout, and deliver better, more personalized care at scale. Patients today expect round-the-clock access to personalized care, but doctors are stuck with outdated, fragmented tools; Leona bridges that gap with intelligent automation and seamless messaging. If you’re driven by tough engineering and user experience challenges, love wearing many hats, and thrive in taking products from 0 to 1, this role is for you.

## Responsibilities

- Take full ownership of projects that are both technically complex and business-critical
- Collaborate closely with design, operations, data science, and medical professionals to deliver impactful product experiences
- Work side-by-side with our CTO to evolve our engineering strategy and improve how we build
- Help shape technical direction and product decisions as a core member of a small, high-performing team

## Requirements

- 6+ years of relevant experience, with a strong track record of building and scaling complex software systems (startup experience is a plus!)
- Deep expertise in backend development using modern technologies (we use Python on the backend; clients are built in Flutter), and familiarity with managing production-scale infrastructure within AWS
- Comfortable working across the stack and owning projects end-to-end — from idea to launch to scale
- Strong understanding of modern AI technologies — you stay current with the tooling landscape and confidently apply AI/ML to real-world problems
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills
- A builder’s mindset and love for creating things that make a difference

We’d love to work with someone who:

- Thrives in ambiguity and fast-moving environments
- Loves collaborating with talented cross-functional teammates
- Is energized by the challenges and opportunities of early-stage startups
- Is mission-driven and passionate about improving health outcomes
- Is curious, resourceful, and always looking to innovate

Bonus points for:

- Experience in health tech or building communication tools (messaging, collaboration, etc.)
- Spanish fluency

## About Leona Health

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Leona is an AI-native operating system for healthcare providers that integrates with WhatsApp to manage patient communication, scheduling, documentation, and billing.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage, backed by Andreessen Horowitz)
- **Headquarters**: Mexico City, Mexico (with offices in Essex, England, UK)
- **Founded**: 2024 (beta launched in Latin America in April 2025)
- **Founders**: Caroline Merin, Tom Chokel, and Arela Solis

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Healthcare Technology (HealthTech)
- **Target customers**: B2B — healthcare professionals, doctors, and medical teams, primarily in Latin America
- **Mission/purpose statement**: “Empowering everyone to take the best care of themselves and their loved ones” by enabling doctors to overcome administrative burden and focus on patient care.

## Products & Services
- **Leona AI Assistant**: An AI-powered co-pilot for clinical messaging that integrates directly with WhatsApp Business. Features include automated conversation summaries, message templates, voice note transcription, automated appointment scheduling, reminders, FAQs handling (24/7), and patient chat triage/prioritization.
- **Practice Management Platform**: A comprehensive system that facilitates scheduling, documentation, and billing, connecting each patient exchange to a longitudinal record.
- **Team Collaboration Tools**: Allows delegation of messages and tasks by role, internal team conversations about patients (invisible to patients), and tracking of which team member has responded.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed (Seed stage)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding — led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in a Seed round announced December 16, 2025. Specific amount not disclosed in available materials.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz (lead investor)
- **Growth Signals**: Since launching its Latin America beta in April 2025, Leona has expanded organically to thousands of physicians, processing millions of patient interactions across more than a dozen countries, and saving providers up to three hours per day. Physician adoption is described as “striking” by a16z.

## Competitive Advantages
- **WhatsApp-native integration**: Built directly into the channel where >85% of physicians in key Latin American countries already communicate with patients, removing adoption friction.
- **AI-native architecture**: Purpose-built for clinical workflows (not a generic CRM or chatbot), with features like urgency flagging, longitudinal patient records, and structured clinical messaging.
- **Deep domain expertise**: Founders bring operational and technical experience from scaling tech companies across the US and Latin America (Uber, Rappi, Modern Fertility, Wonder).
- **First-mover in a massive, underserved market**: WhatsApp is the de facto communication layer in Latin America, but no structured clinical OS existed for it.

## Strategic Focus
- **Primary priority**: Redefining how care is delivered across Latin America and beyond by building the infrastructure backbone for mobile-first, asynchronous healthcare delivery.
- **Expansion**: Scaling from initial beta in Latin America to more countries and providers, with a vision to become “the first place people come when seeking information & care” — an intelligent triage layer for healthcare.
- **Product development**: Deepening the AI capabilities of the platform (Head of Product, AI is a key hire) and expanding the practice management suite (scheduling, billing, documentation).

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven impact**: Directly improving healthcare access and quality for millions of patients in underserved markets.
- **High-growth environment**: A well-funded Seed-stage startup backed by a top-tier VC (a16z), with rapid organic adoption and clear product-market fit.
- **Founding team pedigree**: Founders with experience at Uber, Rappi, Modern Fertility, and Wonder — offering strong mentorship and a culture of scaling.
- **Work policy**: Hybrid — offices in Mexico City and Essex, England. Roles range from in-office to remote (specifics vary by role).
- **Culture**: Described as a diverse team passionate about improving healthcare; open to candidates with unique skill sets who care deeply about the mission.
- **Open roles**: Actively hiring for Head of Growth, Staff Software Engineer - Backend, Growth and Operations, Head of Product (AI), and Lead Product Designer.

## Sources
1. [leona.health](https://www.leona.health/en)
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/leona-health)
3. [a16z.com](https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-leona/)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/leona)

## Other roles at Leona Health

- [Head of Growth](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-growth-leona-health-mexico-city-txr2ztw5akh0) — Mexico City, Mexico
- [Head of Product, AI](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-product-ai-leona-health-san-francisco-6yz619z320tt) — San Francisco, CA
- [Growth and Operations](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-and-operations-leona-health-mexico-city-hraarghv3k48) — Mexico City, Mexico
- [Lead Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-product-designer-leona-health-san-francisco-7qzptffpcevz) — San Francisco, CA
- [Staff Software Engineer - Backend](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-backend-godaddy-united-states-y4za5zdb3etk) — United States
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