Head of Engineering

Fitness & Sports Social Marketplace | Early-Stage Startup | Remote

SweatPals is a peer-to-peer marketplace redefining how fitness communities and enthusiasts connect, engage, and grow. Our platform empowers fitness and sports leaders to monetize their passion through tools for event management, community building, and social discovery — blending e-commerce, social networking, and event tech into one seamless experience. We’re back by a16z and our team includes founding members from PandaDoc, Sofar Sounds and HotelTonight.

We're seeking a Head of Engineering to shape and execute the technical vision, lead engineering efforts, and scale our platform into the go-to global fitness community hub. This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage, mission-driven startup and build from the ground up.

What You’ll Do

• Technology Vision & Strategy: Define and drive the overall technical vision and architecture for a high-performance, real-time marketplace platform. Develop long-term roadmaps that align technology initiatives with business goals and market opportunities.

• Architect & Scale: Oversee the design and scaling of a real-time platform supporting payments, chat, ticketing, and social discovery. Focus on building resilient, secure, and scalable infrastructures that can evolve as the company grows.

• AI-Driven Personalization: Lead initiatives around smart matchmaking and recommendation systems using behavioral data and advanced AI tools. Stay ahead of emerging trends to ensure our platform is current with the market.

• Real-Time Communications: Guide the implementation of low-latency technologies for chat, live notifications, and group features, ensuring seamless integration across services.

• Payments & Marketplace Infrastructure: Lead secure payment processing, escrow systems, and monetization features for fitness solopreneurs. Establish best practices for compliance and risk management

• Event & Community Tools: Ensure seamless ticketing, waiver collection, and community engagement tools are tightly integrated.

• Security & Compliance: Ensure data privacy and regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS). Develop strategic plans for smart fraud detection and cybersecurity risk mitigation to protect our platform and users.

• Cross-Platform Engineering: Lead mobile-first development across React Native, Flutter, or PWA frameworks to ensure seamless UX across devices.

• Data & Growth Analytics: Build analytics systems that drive user acquisition, retention, and monetization insights.

• Team Leadership & Collaboration: Grow and mentor a hands-on engineering team while working cross-functionally with product, marketing, and community teams.

• Talent Development & Culture Building: Drive recruitment strategies for your tech teams, promote professional development, and build a collaborative culture that values continuous learning and innovation. Ensure the organization has the right mix of skills to meet current and future challenges.

• Performance Metrics & KPIs: Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for technology initiatives. Use data-driven insights to optimize performance, ensure quality, and guide strategic decisions.

• Agile Execution: Lead the technical organization in a fast-paced, startup environment with shifting priorities and rapid experimentation. Develop frameworks and processes that allow for innovation while maintaining high standards of operational excellence.

What We’re Looking For

• Startup Experience: You've built and scaled products at early-stage startups, ideally growing alongside a lean tech team.

• Hands-on Leadership: You’re equally comfortable writing code as you are managing a team.

• AI & Emerging Tech Fluency: You’re actively experimenting with AI tools and stay current on fast-moving tech trends.

• Marketplace Expertise: Experience scaling B2C marketplaces, social platforms or platforms with e-commerce, payments, or event tech is a strong plus.

• Strong understanding of mobile app performance optimization, latency reduction, and API efficiency.

• Remote & Cross-Functional Collaboration: You're a great communicator and thrive in remote, async environments. Experience working across product, growth, and ops is key.

• Preference for European-based candidates to align with our current operational hours and team structure.

Bonus Points

for background in fitness, sports tech, or creator economy.

Why Work at SweatPals?

• Impact: Have a significant impact on a fast-growing company in the fitness and wellness space. Work alongside a high-performing, passionate team.

• Innovation: Take on challenging problems that push the boundaries of user engagement and growth in the fitness industry. Shape the way fitness enthusiasts connect and thrive.

• Compensation: Competitive salary and stock options based on your experience, skills, and market trends.

We Are an Equal Opportunity Employer: At SweatPals, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We encourage applicants of all backgrounds and experiences to apply. We believe that a diverse team makes us stronger and better equipped to innovate and grow.