Kinomatic is opening its first office outside California, in the heart of Cleveland’s Health-Tech Corridor. Beyond the real estate, the move is a bet on Cleveland’s talent, its universities, and its healthcare ecosystem.
We sat down with LB Harrison, Kinomatic’s Head of People Ops and Talent Strategy, to talk about what the expansion means for hiring, culture, and what it’s actually like to build a career at Kinomatic.
Key takeaways
- The Kinomatic Cleveland office is the company’s first outside California, in the city’s Health-Tech Corridor.
- More than half of Kinomatic’s new roles over the next year are expected to sit in the Cleveland market, across in-office, hybrid, and remote arrangements.
- Cleveland will be the primary home for product development and software engineering, with quality assurance and compliance built out alongside them.
- The first Kinomatic Cleveland hire is already in place: a Director of Security & Compliance.
- University partnerships start with Case Western Reserve, modeled on the Cal Poly pipeline Kinomatic built in Arroyo Grande.
Why Cleveland: The Talent Perspective
When you first heard Kinomatic was opening an office in Cleveland, what was your reaction from a talent and hiring perspective?
Super exciting, honestly. Cleveland is an obvious choice from a talent perspective, especially in the market we’re in. This isn’t just a real estate decision. Cleveland sits right at the intersection of healthcare and medical technology, and software and product development, which aligns deeply with what we’re doing. It gives us a central location to bring key teams together and collaborate more effectively, and the city’s workforce and infrastructure are already built for the next stage of growth we’re about to go through. We’re not just opening an office. We’re establishing a long-term hub.
Being from Cleveland, what does it mean to be part of bringing Kinomatic there?
Cleveland is home. Going back to where my roots are, where I still have family, it’s genuinely exciting to get tied back into a great city and great people. All the way across the board.
What roles or functions will be based in the Kinomatic Cleveland office?
We’re looking to base more than half of our new roles over the next year in the Cleveland market, through a mix of in-office, hybrid, and remote arrangements. Cleveland will be the primary home for our product development and software engineering teams. We’re also building out our quality assurance and compliance capabilities there. We’ve already hired our Director of Security & Compliance, who sits in the Cleveland office. Longer term, we expect to bring in patient experience team members as well, whether hybrid or remote.
Beyond hospitals and health tech, what makes Cleveland a strong talent market for Kinomatic?
Cleveland has a different kind of loyalty, on the sports side and in its schools. The market has nearly 190,000 students enrolled across its colleges and universities,[1] and 51% of 2024 graduates stayed in the greater Cleveland area to launch their careers, up from a 47% baseline just a few years ago.[2] That gives us access to both emerging and experienced talent.
You’ve got Case Western Reserve with nationally recognized biomedical engineering programs, Cleveland State, John Carroll, and Kent State close by, and Ohio State and University of Toledo across the state. A lot of people who grew up in Cleveland, went off to school, and came back to build their careers here. We want to give people the chance to do meaningful, innovative work without having to leave Ohio for it.
How will Cleveland hires work with the California team and Kinomatic’s remote workforce?
We’re one Kinomatic and with this new office, we’re not segmenting into independent hubs. Our Cleveland employees will work hand in hand with our California and remote teams, the same way our remote workforce operates today, and that will hold true as we expand into additional markets. Our locations may be different, but our mission, standards, goals, and accountability are shared across the board. The office gives our people another place to collaborate, and it also gives us a stronger East Coast time zone presence.
Talent Strategy & Culture
The announcement mentions plans to partner with local universities, similar to what Kinomatic has done with its Cal Poly internship program. What does the talent pipeline strategy look like in Cleveland?
We want to build lasting partnerships with universities, not just reach out when we have openings. That means internships, early-career opportunities, and eventually things like rotational programs, along with real relationships with faculty and more career events that expose students to what emerging orthopedic technology looks like. Case Western is an obvious first partner, given its biomedical engineering and healthcare talent, but our strategy goes well beyond one school. Ohio has a tremendous number of universities we can build relationships with over time. We’re not hiring people for jobs. We’re hiring people for careers, and our long-term goal is a repeatable local talent pipeline, the same model we’ve built in Arroyo Grande with Cal Poly.
How does this expansion change Kinomatic’s hiring priorities over the next 12 months? What skills are in higher demand?
Our immediate priorities are software engineering, product development, and quality assurance, with a strong focus on regulatory compliance and operational scalability. We need people who understand the rigor required when a technology company intersects with healthcare. That technical expertise is critical, but it’s not enough on its own. We also need people who can work across departments and translate between software, medical technology, surgical workflows, and patient needs, and who can document their work and help us build scalable process as we grow quickly. Leadership and cross-functional collaboration matter more with every stage of growth.
What do you look for that’s unique to Kinomatic when you’re sourcing talent?
Every company says it’s disruptive. We’re genuinely building something that hasn’t been done before in this field, so we’re not hiring people to maintain a mature process that’s already laid out. We’re hiring people who can create process, product, and even standards for the future. We want people who stay curious, who ask why we’re doing something a certain way and why we don’t try it another way. That open culture, where people have the freedom to ask that question, is one of the best things we have to offer. Our CEO, Shaun Lea, has one philosophy from the top down: the best idea wins, regardless of what level it comes from. Curiosity, comfort with ambiguity, and a builder mindset are what we screen for.
What are you screening for when it comes to candidates and AI?
AI capabilities are critical. We built Kinect from the ground up, so we can capture the entire episode of care to create the data foundation that will train and deploy AI models. We screen for familiarity with AI, and specifically how someone uses it. Efficiency is the biggest use case for how we want people to use AI. We’re also looking for people who think outside the box and push the limits on the creative ideas they already have.
As Kinomatic grows across two coasts, how do you keep culture and quality of hire consistent?
This is always the hard part from a people ops perspective. The architect can design something great on paper, but production is where you see the groundwork. For us, consistency starts with being intentional about who we hire and what we evaluate in that process: mission alignment, functional excellence, curiosity, and the personal characteristics that don’t show up on a resume, like whether someone is willing to collaborate, has sound judgment, and takes ownership. Those come out through the interview process, which is why we’re strengthening structured interviews and candidate evaluations for every role we hire.
We’re also building more consistent onboarding, documented expectations, measurable goals, and leadership accountability, so the bar is the same whether a role is based in California or Ohio. Culture isn’t protected by writing values down. It’s protected by turning those values into behavior, starting with who we hire, recognize, develop, and promote from the top down.
Is patient centricity part of what you screen for in culture and quality of hire?
Patient centricity isn’t a standalone screening criteria, but it is part of how we think about quality of hire. We look for people who understand that, regardless of their role, their work ultimately impacts the patient experience. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when a joint replacement goes wrong; someone close to me had surgery in their fifties with an implant that didn’t fit right, and needed a revision years earlier than it should have been.
Being part of a company whose whole focus is getting it right the first time, and knowing directly what “bad” can look like, makes this work personal.
What It’s Like to Work at Kinomatic
For someone in Cleveland considering Kinomatic, what would you want them to know about the day-to-day?
The work is meaningful, collaborative, and closely connected to the patient experience. Employees have direct access to leaders and can see how their individual contributions affect the broader business, and that transparency means a lot to new hires. We’re growing quickly, so the environment is fast-paced. People often work across disciplines to solve problems that don’t have an established playbook yet, and building that playbook is part of the job. Employees are trusted with real ownership, but ownership comes with high expectations. This environment is best suited for people who are curious, flexible, hold themselves to a high standard of accountability, and are energized by building something new.
What career paths open up for early hires, and what could someone’s growth look like in two to three years?
Early hires shape more than their individual role. They help establish how their function operates and influence the culture of the Cleveland office, and they often build the systems and processes future employees will use. We’ve already seen this play out in California: 7 of our 15 interns have converted into full-time employees, a 46.7% conversion rate. Staff who started as segmentation interns have grown into planner roles, and planners have moved into product. As we build out functions, we’re seeing people transition from sales and patient experience, too. Growth always depends on performance, capability, and business need, but joining this early gives you a rare chance to grow alongside the company and help define what your own role becomes.
What part of Kinomatic’s mission tends to resonate most with new hires?
It’s the direct line between our work and the person whose life is improved by it. We’re not building technology for its own sake. We’re working to improve surgical planning and create a more connected recovery experience for hip and knee replacement patients, and every role contributes to that in some way. The code someone writes, the quality process they design, the operational decisions they make, the patient interactions they have, all of it can affect someone’s mobility and quality of life. Once people understand that connection, the mission becomes personal.
If someone is on the fence about applying, what would you say to them?
Apply, apply, apply. Let’s have a conversation. You don’t have to check every box to bring something valuable to Kinomatic. We’re looking for people who are excellent at what they do, believe healthcare can be better, and want to build what comes next. If you want a job where everything is already decided and documented, this probably isn’t the right environment. But if you want meaningful ownership, high expectations, access to leaders, and a real chance to shape a growing company, this is a rare opportunity, especially in the Midwest with East Coast reach. Don’t disqualify yourself before giving us the chance to learn what you could bring to the table.
Interested in joining Kinomatic in Cleveland? See our open roles.