Founder

Nils Widal, healthcare engineer.

Ten plus years building production software for the codebases that run healthcare. Pharmacy APIs, EHR integrations, AI scribes, clinical analytics. From blank repos to twenty year monoliths. IC, VP Engineering, CTO, co-founder. The work, not the title.

Based
San Francisco Bay Area
Tenure
10+ years
Roles
VP Engineering, CTO, Product Lead, Co-Founder, IC.
In summary

Building and scaling
healthcare platforms.

Pharmacy, telemedicine, EHR interop, agentic systems. Both the blank-repo platforms and the brownfield migrations into twenty-year-old monoliths. Senior throughout, embedded with the operator, measured the way the operator already measures.

Scale

Scaled engineering teams

Built and managed engineering teams of 50+ across multiple products, from staffing to retros to on-call shape.

Platform

Platform architecture

Designed and shipped enterprise-grade platforms like the Truepill API at 10M+ daily calls, with the boring observability work that keeps them running.

Clinical

Healthcare innovation

Led development of AI-powered clinical tools that landed in production and moved real metrics for clinicians and patients.

Range

IC to executive

Flexible technical leader. Writes the merge commit, runs the standup, owns the roadmap. Whatever the engagement needs.

Products built

Six shipped,
in production.

Pharmacy, marketplace, member portal, menopause clinic, patient app, smart inbox. Different stacks, same constraint: real patient flow, on someone's shift.

01VP Engineering

Truepill API

Enterprise pharmacy API platform serving 100+ partners.

Impact

Processed 10M+ API calls per month.

Node.jsReactAWSPostgreSQLRedis
Visit site →
02Product Manager

Cost Plus Drugs

Transparent prescription drug marketplace built with Mark Cuban.

Impact

Saved patients $100M+ on prescription costs.

ReactNode.jsAWSStripePostgreSQL
Visit site →
03Senior Engineering Manager

Optum Store

Digital pharmacy platform for Optum members.

Impact

Served tens of millions of UnitedHealth-affiliated members during the 2018 to 2020 buildout.

JavaSpring BootReactAzureMongoDB
Visit site →
04CTO & Co-Founder

Menopause App for Big Pharma Consumer Health

Menopause platform and clinical analytics, built under a confidential partnership with a global consumer health business.

Impact

Served thousands of women with menopause support and analytics across the 2017 to 2018 build.

PythonTensorFlowReactAWSPostgreSQL
05Founder

Vane Health

Patient portal (vanehealth.com) and companion mobile app for ongoing care.

Impact

In active development.

Visit site →
06Product Lead

Smart Inbox

AI-powered healthcare communication platform.

Impact

Streamlined patient communication across small group practices.

Node.jsReactAWSTwilioPostgreSQL
Experience

Three companies,
one through-line.

Ten plus years of senior engineering leadership in healthcare: pharmacy, payer, clinical platforms. The same operating principle across all three: ship production software inside the operator's codebase, on the operator's metric.

01

Truepill

VP of Engineering2020 to 2023

Led engineering teams building the Truepill API platform and the Cost Plus Drugs marketplace.

What we shipped
  • 01Built and scaled the Truepill API serving 100+ pharmacy partners
  • 02Led development of Cost Plus Drugs, processing $100M+ in prescriptions
  • 03Managed 50+ engineers across multiple product teams
  • 04Architected a microservices platform handling 10M+ API calls daily
Stack
Node.jsReactAWSPostgreSQLRedisKubernetesDocker
02

Optum

CTO2018 to 2020

Led development of Optum Store and digital pharmacy platforms inside the UnitedHealth umbrella.

What we shipped
  • 01Built Optum Store platform serving tens of millions of UnitedHealth-affiliated members (2018 to 2020)
  • 02Implemented enterprise-grade security and compliance
  • 03Led migration to a cloud-native architecture
  • 04Reduced platform costs by 40% through optimization
Stack
JavaSpring BootReactAzureMongoDBKafkaElasticsearch
03

Menopause App for Big Pharma Consumer Health

CTO & Co-Founder2017 to 2018

Built a menopause platform and AI-powered healthcare analytics from blank repo to first paying customers, under a confidential partnership with a global consumer health business.

What we shipped
  • 01Developed the menopause platform end to end
  • 02Built AI algorithms for clinical decision support
  • 03Built a real-time healthcare analytics dashboard
  • 04Secured HIPAA compliance and SOC 2 certification
  • 05Raised $2M in seed funding
Stack
PythonTensorFlowReactAWSPostgreSQLRedisDocker
Skills

Across leadership,
stack, and clinical.

Leadership
Engineering managementProduct strategyTeam buildingTechnical architectureAgile delivery
Technology
Node.jsReactPythonJavaAWSPostgreSQLRedisDockerKubernetesMicroservices
Healthcare
HIPAA complianceFHIRHL7Pharmacy systemsTelemedicineClinical workflowsHealthcare APIs
AI / ML
Machine learningNLPComputer visionPredictive analyticsClinical decision support
Open a thread

Build the future of
healthcare with us.

Breakthrough platform, brownfield migration, or an honest read on what is actually production-ready. The first conversation is thirty minutes with two senior engineers.