Senior Data Engineer

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 and 401(k) retirement plan to keep you well and planning for the future

• Being part of a mission-driven company focused on delivering the care we would want for our own families.

Compensation: This role offers a base salary of $135,000 - $195,000, depending on experience and qualifications

Note : This job description is intended as a guideline and may evolve based on organizational needs. Additional responsibilities may be assigned as needed based on business considerations. Compensation may vary from the target range and is based on multiple factors, including individual experience, location, pay-equity considerations, and other relevant considerations.

Protera Health is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage respect and harmony among employees and prohibit harassment or discrimination of any kind.