Technology Lead

Would you like to use your software tech skills to save lives? Join us!

Location: Remote within India. Preferably (but not necessarily) based in Pune/Bangalore, which allows for periodic in-person meetings with other team members.

Hours: Full-time

Travel: Once or twice in a quarter to work closely with program teams

Salary Range: We don't list a salary because we don't want it to be the primary motivator for applying to this position, nor do we want it to be a deterrent.

Reports to: Head of Tech

Application deadline: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and the role will remain open until filled.

​

​About Suvita

Suvita is an impact-driven, evidence-based nonprofit focused on increasing uptake of routine childhood vaccinations in India. Over 4 million children born every year still miss their basic vaccinations in India, leading to far too many vaccine-preventable deaths. We run two rigorously tested, complementary programmes:

• SMS reminders: We send personalised SMS messages to caregivers to prompt timely attendance for vaccinations at government clinics.
• Immunisation ambassadors: We identify and train local influencers to volunteer as advocates for vaccination with families in their communities.

Since our founding in 2019:

• We reach one in ten children born in India through our SMS vaccination reminders. In partnership with the governments of Bihar and Maharashtra, we’ve reached more than 6 million families with routine immunisation SMS reminders and more than 4 million pregnant women with antenatal care-related SMS reminders.
• We’ve enrolled almost 15,000 community influencers as local ambassadors in districts in Bihar and Maharashtra.
• GiveWell estimates that our SMS reminders increase vaccination rates by approximately 2 percentage points at a current cost of $0.40 per child reached in Maharashtra and $1.71 per child reached in Bihar. The immunization ambassadors programme increases vaccination rates by around 7 percentage points and costs $1 to $2 per child reached.
• We are running learning sprints to test our immunisation ambassador model.
• We have been incubated and funded by sector leaders like The/Nudge Foundation, Ambitious Impact (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship), Mulago Foundation, GiveWell, D-Prize, Founders Pledge and Schmidt Futures.
• We have appeared in Vox, Giving What We Can and the 80,000 Hours Podcast.

​

About the role

Suvita's tech stack is live, complex, and high-impact. PostgreSQL pipelines processing millions of beneficiary records, SurveyCTO integrations across field teams, Telerivet and WhatsApp messaging systems reaching 1.7 million families, Exotel-based IVRS flows, and dashboards used by leadership and funders every week.

​

The systems work. But there is real engineering work ahead to make them more robust, observable, and intelligent.

You will be the most hands-on senior engineer on the team. You will build and own systems end to end, set and maintain engineering standards, and be the person others rely on when something hard needs to be solved. You will work closely with the Head of Technology who will set direction and priorities. Your job is to execute on that direction with high technical quality.

​

Here are examples of real work you will handle:​

​​

• ETL and pipelines: Our ETL pipelines are Python and cron based, processing data across SurveyCTO, PostgreSQL, Telerivet, and multiple external tools. Review the architecture, identify fragility and hardcoding, and redesign where needed to make them reliable and maintainable at scale.
• Monitoring and observability: We have no comprehensive monitoring system today. Design and implement alerting across pipelines, AWS infrastructure, and messaging systems so failures are caught before they affect programs on the ground.
• AI and chatbots: Build and deploy AI-powered tools including WhatsApp chatbots and IVRS flows, working with program teams to define the right logic and intervention design.
• Infrastructure: Review and improve our AWS infrastructure across EC2, RDS, and S3. Identify cost inefficiencies, reliability gaps, and what needs to change as we expand to new states.
• Engineering standards: Set and maintain code quality across the team. Own code reviews, architectural decisions, and documentation practices.
• API integrations: Own and improve integrations with SurveyCTO, Telerivet, Exotel, WhatsApp, and government systems like RCH and U-WIN.

​

This role suits someone who is deeply hands-on, takes full ownership of systems, and can also zoom out to spot systemic problems before they become crises.

​​

Why is this a brilliant opportunity?