Senior Data Engineer

About this role

ABOUT PROTERA HEALTH

Protera Health is a musculoskeletal (MSK) specialty care company. We partner with health plans, health systems, and employers to deliver coordinated, measurable MSK care - reducing unnecessary surgery and imaging while getting people back to full function faster. Our clinical model combines specialist physicians, physical therapy, and digital care navigation, wrapped in a technology platform that connects patients, clinicians, and payer partners.

This is not a narrow engineering job, an architecture-only role, or a 40-hour-per-week clock-in, clock-out position. We care about ownership, sound judgment, velocity, and outcomes. The right person will have founder-level autonomy, direct access to leadership, and the opportunity to build core systems that affect real patients, clinicians, and healthcare partners.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a hands-on Senior Data Engineer on a small team, you will build and scale the data platform driving Protera's clinical operations, payer reporting, and analytics. This is a senior individual contributor role reporting to the President. In this role, you will collaborate cross-functionally with clinical, technology, finance, and compliance teams. This role is 100% hands-on; you are expected to be the full technical lead for your domain, not one of several engineers on a layered team.

We are seeking a highly capable data engineer with a specialized background in healthcare data and claims processing.

- Core Technical Stack: In this role, you will lead the development and day-to-day function of the data platform supporting our clinical, business intelligence, and artificial intelligence operations. This is a hands-on, full-stack data role; your responsibilities will span constructing data pipelines, developing and maintaining backend architecture, and integrating modern AI-driven development tools. Experience with production Python, Terraform, GCP infrastructure, CI/CD, and pipeline observability are required.

- Experience with Healthcare Claims Data: We are looking for someone with deep expertise with PHI and Healthcare claims data.

- AI Philosophy: We encourage the responsible use of AI development tools but strictly prohibit inputting PHI. You will champion the safe AI principles fundamental to our engineering culture.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- Pipeline Engineering: Build and orchestrate (via Mage) ingestion pipelines (SFTP, APIs, EHR extracts) and write production-grade Python for transformations, reporting, and internal tooling.

- Data Modeling & SQL: Design optimized analytical models (BigQuery) and maintain complex SQL assets (BigQuery, PostgreSQL), balancing scale, performance, and cost.

- Infrastructure as Code: Own and manage GCP infrastructure (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage, Functions, Secret Manager, VPC, IAM) entirely via Terraform.

- Observability: Implement robust data quality checks, freshness/volume monitoring, failure alerts, and incident response paths.

- Business Intelligence & Reporting: Develop and maintain internal reporting surfaces (Looker Studio, Grafana, Metabase).

- Security & Compliance: Design pipelines that adhere to requirements surrounding PHI, ensuring minimum-necessary access, encryption, least-privilege IAM, and audit logging to support our SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, and HITRUST compliance initiatives.

- Cross-Functional Strategy: Collaborate with team members within clinical operations, product, finance, etc. to translate business questions into reliable data products, while contributing to the architecture for future AI/ML initiatives (data preparation, feature engineering).

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Experience: 5+ years in data engineering, analytics engineering, or a hybrid backend/data role.

- Education: Bachelor’s in Computer Science or a related field or equivalent experience.

- Software Fundamentals: Ability to write, test, debug, ship production code, and utilize structured logging and dependency management.

- Demonstrated experience working with healthcare claims data

- Python & SQL Proficiency: Deep expertise in production data pipelines, window functions, CTEs, and query/cost optimization for large tables.

- GCP Ecosystem: Hands-on experience with BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, Compute Engine, Functions, Logging/Monitoring, Secret Manager, and IAM.

- PostgreSQL: Production experience encompassing schema design, indexing, and diagnosing slow queries.

- Orchestration & BI: Experience with modern orchestrators (Mage, Airflow, Dagster, dbt) and BI layers (Looker Studio, Power BI, semantic modeling).

- Security & AI Ethics: Demonstrated care handling sensitive data in regulated environments, paired with sound judgment regarding when (and when not) to use AI-assisted coding tools.

BENEFICIAL EXPERIENCE ("NICE TO HAVE")

- Startup Experience: Proven success thriving in fast-paced, lean environments with high autonomy and end-to-end ownership of technical outcomes.

- Continuous Tech Evaluation: A "lifelong learner" mindset with the ability to evaluate and responsibly integrate emerging data technologies.

- Healthcare Domain Knowledge: Familiarity with X12 EDI, payer file formats, HL7/FHIR, EHR integrations (Healthie is a strong plus), and HIPAA regulations.

- Analytics Background: Foundational data science or basic data analytics skills.

WHY PROTERA

- Lead and shape a growing multidisciplinary clinical organization.

- Build the systems that determine how patients experience their care.

- Work directly with experienced clinical, operational, and technology leaders.

- Fully remote work: work from your home or other private, secured area to help fit your lifestyle

- Competitive compensation, equity and bonus opportunities based on your experience and results delivered

- Paid Time Off (PTO): Generous paid time off that includes vacation days and holidays

- Equity options to benefit from company growth

- Healthcare benefits…