Staff Data Platform Architect

Job Title: Staff Data Platform Architect

Location: Philadelphia, PA

Health Union powers the first and largest community-based activation and data platform, transforming healthcare by providing unparalleled support, information, and validation for millions navigating complex health conditions and their care teams. With over 125+ condition-specific online communities and 15 years of community leadership, Health Union's authentic engagements fuel the company's robust suite of endemic media, influencer marketing, market research, and data solutions, driving proven outcomes for patients, HCPs, and brands.

Position Overview:


The Staff Data Platform Architect is a highly hands-on, high-impact role centered on execution and technical leadership. You will be the technical leader, translating the technical direction and designs set by our leadership into deployed, highly functional data platforms. Your primary mission is to ensure our vision for enterprise data is realized efficiently and reliably in production.

To achieve this, you will design and implement scalable data solutions primarily using AWS and Snowflake, but also incorporating other tools as necessary, given our evolving data ecosystem. You will guide the Data Team and partner across the organization to deliver reliable, high-quality data platforms. This role requires exceptional coordination skills to bridge communication and execution across engineering teams, as well as with critical cross-functional partners.

What You Do:

• Move fluidly between high-level architecture and hands-on implementation, translating data platform strategy and roadmap into clear, actionable technical designs.
• Architect and implement scalable data solutions using AWS and Snowflake, including pipelines, storage layers, and data models for analytics, operational, and AI enablement use cases.
• Design, implement, and evolve a clean, consolidated core data platform architecture across AWS, Snowflake, dbt, and integrated systems by eliminating redundancy and optimizing for performance, cost, and efficiency.
• Define authoritative standards for data ingestion, transformation, data modeling, and pipeline development, including ingestion frameworks and tooling, to deliver scalable, resilient, and efficient data movement.
• Establish and enforce data quality standards, ensuring freshness, completeness, and reliability through validation, monitoring, and observability.
• Solve complex technical challenges with innovation and proactive problem-solving, including cross-system architecture, Snowflake workload optimization, pipeline reliability, and integrating new data sources and applications into the unified platform.
• Collaborate across Data, Product, Engineering, and Business teams to deliver aligned, high-impact solutions.
• Define and promote best practices for data modeling, pipeline design, and platform architecture.
• Ensure systems meet security, governance, and compliance requirements and are production-ready.
• Mentor and guide engineers on architecture, design decisions, and engineering best practices, and translate architectural direction into actionable guidance for engineers on complex or high-leverage projects.

What You Bring:

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering or data platform architecture.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing and evolving unified data platforms built on AWS and Snowflake, with a proven track record of consolidating complex multi-system environments into clean, maintainable architectures.
• Experience in healthcare, ad tech, programmatic audiences, or related industries is a plus.
• Deep expertise across data ingestion, transformation, data modeling, and pipeline development, including relational and non-relational databases, data streams, file stores, dbt, Apache Airflow, Python, Spark, and advanced SQL.
• Strong command of performance tuning, query optimization, and the ability to define and enforce rigorous engineering standards and quality assurance processes across the platform.
• Experience implementing CI/CD practices for data pipelines and platform infrastructure.
• Understanding of data security, governance, and compliance principles as they apply to platform architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to translate data strategy into architectural designs and implementation plans, and lead technical initiatives.
• Strong communication and teamwork skills, with the ability to operate effectively across engineering, cross-functional, and leadership audiences, and elevate the engineers around you through mentorship and technical guidance.
• A self-motivated, innovative mindset to proactively identify problems, frame solutions, and drive outcomes without waiting to be directed.
• Experience supporting advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI use cases, with enthusiasm for adopting AI tools across the development lifecycle and user-facing solutions.
• AWS and Snowflake certifications, such as AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate, AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional, SnowPro Advanced: Architect, or SnowPro Advanced: Data Engineer, are a strong advantage.

Annual base salary for positions at this level and job group is $125,000 - $140,000, and your base pay will depend on the qualifications, experience, skills, and competencies required for this job.

At Health Union, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range that provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role.

In addition, our Total Rewards package includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan, a professional development budget, and paid time off available to full-time employees upon hire. You will also be granted time off for designated company-paid holidays, summer Fridays, Personal/Family Care, and other leaves of absence when needed to support your physical, financial, and emotional well-being.

HEALTH UNION REALLY IS THE BEST PLACE TO WORK

As a dynamic organization that offers flexible work options, we foster a workplace that encourages an authentic, respectful culture of teaching and learning. We work hard and save space to form close-knit relationships that are meaningful to us individually. Health Union also offers top-tier benefits and other perks to full-time employees, starting day one. We cultivate a dynamic, collaborative work environment that values inclusion, community, excellence, and transparency. But don't just take our word for it: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Business Journal, Inc., and Forbes have all named Health Union a "best place to work"-and we take pride in living up to that hype every day.


Commitment to Inclusion

At Health Union, we believe that individually we make a statement, but collectively we make an impact. Diversity and inclusion power that impact. We strive to create a sense of belonging by embracing our differences. We are an organization where everyone is valued, heard, and appreciated. Health Union encourages applicants from historically marginalized populations to consider our team as your next opportunity for change. We are committed to equal employment opportunity and advancement regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or gender expression, Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.


To comply with federal law, Health Union participates in E-Verify. Successful candidates must pass the E-Verify process after hire.

The position offers a hybrid work arrangement, requiring a minimum of two in-office days per week. Our office is located in Center City, Philadelphia.


Applicants must be legally eligible to work in the U.S for any employer.

*Candidates only. No direct calls or emails. No recruiters/agencies, please.