Chalise Grogan
Senior Engineering Manager
15+ years building scalable consumer products for platforms serving millions
15+ years building scalable consumer products for platforms serving millions
I'm a senior engineer with 15+ years building scalable consumer products, with experience leading technical teams and 0-1 initiatives. I've shipped products used by millions - from personalized genetics tools at 23andMe to mental health platforms serving 50M+ lives - and I'm at my best when technical depth and people leadership intersect.
Based in California, I'm currently a Senior Engineering Manager at Spring Health, where I focus on making mental healthcare more accessible. I care deeply about helping engineers grow, building inclusive team cultures, and delivering high-quality work that makes a real difference in people's lives.
Joined Spring Health to lead the Go-To-Market engineering team for a stealth 0-1 initiative expanding Spring Health's $500M B2B mental health platform into a direct-to-consumer product serving 50M+ lives. Transitioned in Jan 2026 to Sr. Engineering Manager for the Top of Funnel team, now owning the full critical path of the member journey: registration, authentication, onboarding, and provider matching.
DTC product launch (2025): Built and scaled a 7-person engineering team from 0 to 1 across the full stack (Ruby on Rails, NextJS, React). Designed HIPAA-compliant security and privacy architecture for General Availability. Launched consumer-facing product with public provider directory, signup flows, real-time insurance eligibility verification, and cost estimation. Drove technical SEO strategy (dynamic sitemaps, canonical URLs, page optimization) for organic growth. Shipped a conversational AI provider matching tool helping users find therapists by cultural fit, care preferences, and therapy style.
Top of Funnel (Jan 2026 - Present): Leads the team responsible for how millions of people discover and access mental healthcare for the first time, working across product, design, and data to deliver intuitive, reliable experiences at scale.
Senior Engineering Manager (Apr 2023 - Nov 2024): Managed a team of up to 10 engineers delivering Total Health premium product, commerce, and access control systems including FDA Medical Device compliance. Designed an audit framework that identified significant financial exposure across the subscription billing system, leading a cross-functional initiative to resolve systemic issues in payment processing and user provisioning. Supported security incident remediation efforts across consumer-facing systems.
Engineering Manager (2021-2023): Owned email service infrastructure; built data synchronization between monolith and email service in Python/Django, implemented opt-in/opt-out preference management, and managed deliverability and IP/domain reputation. Migrated CI/CD pipeline from Bitbucket to GitHub Actions, reducing operational complexity and costs. Supported subscription management using Braintree payments, Celery task queues, and distributed systems.
Senior Software Engineer (2018-2021): Built personalized behavior change recommendation system integrating genetic risk factors with environmental data into actionable health insights. Co-led development of the first modular design system with automated accessibility validation.
Lead Web Application Developer (2016-2018): Led technical architecture and implementation for a literacy education platform serving 500K daily sessions. Built a centralized dashboard from scratch using React and Redux (reusable component architecture adopted across the platform). Architected real-time student activity tracking with Redux state management and a Python/Django backend, enabling live teacher insights and intervention workflows. Established front-end engineering standards: code review process, style guides, test coverage requirements, and automated testing pipeline.
Senior Web Developer (2015-2016): Helped build the new front-end stack for the literacy EdTech startup, designed modular teacher homepage, and created a new in-app ad model.
Senior Developer (2014-2015): Built the Commerce service handling all order creation and processing for the event booking marketplace. Led development of two Android applications, including a 0-1 app for product-market fit testing.
Web Application Developer (2012-2014): Redesigned and implemented a MVC REST API, migrating business logic from stored procedures to C#, achieving a 90% reduction in server processing time. Rebuilt the public-facing website from Classic ASP to .NET, including a custom CMS and Lucene-based content search.
Developed high-visibility web applications for the university community. Led product, project, and engineering work for Computing & Network Services.
Full-tier IT support; managed backup infrastructure, maintained Classic ASP apps, handled device installs, network cabling, and server room operations.
Support Services Technician (2008-2010) and Teaching/Research Assistant (Fall 2010): hardware support for faculty and staff, research synthesis, test grading, and student mentorship.