Modern Fertility (YC S17) | San Francisco, CA | ONSITE, Full-time | Early engineer | https://modernfertility.com/
We are a women's health company focused on making fertility information more accessible for women everywhere. Modern Fertility is the first comprehensive test you can take at home to check in on your fertility. We're growing fast and backed by top tier investors.
We're looking for a talented engineer to join our small team that shares our passion for women's health. As our third engineering hire, you will collaborate with coworkers across teams and own projects from start to finish. Technologies and platforms we use: Javascript, React, CSS/SCSS, Django, Python, Postgres, AWS
Requirements:
* You have strong front end skills and experience styling & building web apps, ideally in a startup. We use React/ES6.
* You are familiar with the backend - experience with Django/Python is a plus!
* You thrive in a fast-paced environment.
* You welcome feedback and love to learn. You get energy from working closely with a team.
* You're passionate about women's health and making health information more accessible for women everywhere.
If you like making things that make a difference–and having fun doing it–we'd love to hear from you!
Thanks for the feedback on the AMH language. We are always trying to find the best way to simplify the science. In regards to AMH, great question! AMH is known by the clinical community as the best marker for ovarian reserve. I know everyone doesn't have access to peer reviewed journals so here are a few quotes: Podfigurna et al 2017: "AMH level is recognized to be the one of the most reliable markers of ovarian reserve [60–65]. AMH is mainly produced by granulosa cells of the pre-antral and small antral follicles and AMH levels decline with age. AMH level, especially in comparison with FSH level, was considered to be very stable across the menstrual cycle, but more recent studies have shown a slight decrease in AMH concentrations in the luteal phase [56,57]. Moreover, unlike other tests of ovarian reserve, such as AFC and FSH, it has sufficient specificity and sensitivity [58]. AMH concentration correlates with age and AFC" // Leader and Baker 2014:"Hundreds of clinical studies confirm that adding serum AMH testing to a complete ovarian assessment provides a powerful tool to help provide better healthcare for women. The benefits of this testing can optimize fertility treatments; help lead to earlier diagnoses of PCOS, POI, POF, and certain autoimmune conditions; provide the opportunity for better planning for procreation and menopause; and allow for better medical decision-making by monitoring ovarian damage from exposures to medical or surgical therapies. Although challenges with variability in AMH results make the provided practical steps a prerequisite for appropriate interpretation of the testing, the clinical benefits of testing more than justify this additional effort." We have a great post on the science behind ovarian reserve testing here: https://modernfertility.com/blog/ovarianreserve/
We are working on it! No matter what age you are, the tests are the same. We worked super hard to have age specific content for the range of 21-40 but are excited to expand this. Women need information about fertility through their entire lives because it impacts so many aspects of health and wellbeing. Our next step is to expand our age range to over 40.
Great question! All of our data is securely stored and we take privacy very seriously. Modern Fertility employees can only access user data via an internal administrative portal to which access is strictly controlled and monitored and two-factor authentication is required. Access is reviewed on a regular basis. Data is stored in a de-identified manor. All Modern Fertility employees who handle PHI are required to complete a HIPAA training hosted by HHS.gov.
Yes! We are already working with a few companies who are offering Modern Fertility as a wellness benefit. If you are interested you can email [email protected] and we will schedule a quick demo and get you setup in <20 minutes. Thanks so much for asking.
Hi! Are you referring to human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg)? If so, HCG is used in pregnancy tests not an ovarian reserve test. We do not test for HCG.
Thanks for digging in! We share exactly where the science is and what these tests can and cannot tell you. We can't count the exact number of eggs, and we do report in buckets which are impactful and have clinical utility. One of the hormones we measure is AMH which is a well validated proxy of ovarian reserve. There is a lot of literature on AMH but Hansen et.al.2011 is one of my favorites- they counted the number of eggs (primordial follicles to be specific) in the ovaries of women who were already having their ovaries removed for other medical reasons and found the their AMH levels strongly correlated with follicle count.
Wow- really appreciate you sharing your story (and thanks for the kind words). The main reason we started Modern Fertility was to give women the tools to start the conversation about our reproductive futures.
I think it is so important for stories like this to be shared and to start a transparent dialogue. We see celebrity pregnancies on the cover of magazines but typically no backstory about what went into them. Thank you.
Thanks! Totally agree- this was my exact experience (billed $1500). Today, women typically get these tests when they are having issues and we are making them available to women before they start trying to conceive. There are only ~500 infertility clinics in the US so when you think about the volume of testing they do vs. a general healthy population being able to access these tests, we get different economies of scale and can pass on these savings. We have invested a lot in our processes to support this scale.
Male factor is 50% of the equation and it is really important for both women and men to understand that from an education perspective. We are customers ourselves for our female fertility test and understand the female market well, but are interested in learning more about if males would proactively test / store their sperm.
I believe egg freezing is not the right decision for everyone. It is not a guarantee/ insurance policy, but it does help with the odds. We (women) should be understanding our bodies as a first step and hormone levels combined with other factors (finances, emotional state, family planning goals etc) should be included in the decision to freeze or not to freeze. We started Modern Fertility to help women navigate these decisions.
Thanks for the kind words! Infertility is not federally reimbursed and if a company happens to cover infertility as a benefit, women have to wait until they are having issues (and "try" for 9-12 months) before these types of tests are covered. We started Modern Fertility to bring these tests to women earlier in life at a much more accessible price point. Some HSA/FSA plans cover Modern Fertility.
We are a women's health company focused on making fertility information more accessible for women everywhere. Modern Fertility is the first comprehensive test you can take at home to check in on your fertility. We're growing fast and backed by top tier investors.
We're looking for a talented engineer to join our small team that shares our passion for women's health. As our third engineering hire, you will collaborate with coworkers across teams and own projects from start to finish. Technologies and platforms we use: Javascript, React, CSS/SCSS, Django, Python, Postgres, AWS
Requirements: * You have strong front end skills and experience styling & building web apps, ideally in a startup. We use React/ES6. * You are familiar with the backend - experience with Django/Python is a plus! * You thrive in a fast-paced environment. * You welcome feedback and love to learn. You get energy from working closely with a team. * You're passionate about women's health and making health information more accessible for women everywhere.
If you like making things that make a difference–and having fun doing it–we'd love to hear from you!
To apply: mention you found us on HN and email jobs+engineer (at) modernfertility.com or apply on AngelList at https://angel.co/company/modern-fertility/jobs/277844-softwa...