Principal Data Engineer

## Principal Data Engineer Apply locations:
Remote Massachusetts time type:
Full time posted on:
Posted Todayjob requisition :
R-421129#
** Become a part of our caring community
** The Principal Data Engineer owns the design and delivery of the NBA platform's data pipelines on the Databricks Lakehouse. This is a hands-on engineering role first - you are expected to be a significant individual contributor building production pipelines every sprint. You also lead a small team of data engineers and contractors, and are accountable for the quality, reliability, and timeliness of the data that feeds the platform's AI models and decisioning system.
** What You'll Own
*** Pipeline delivery - design, build, and own the Bronze/Silver/Gold lakehouse pipelines that power the NBA platform: member profiles, clinical signals, behavioral data, web clickstream, and socioeconomic features
* Hands-on development - actively write and ship production SQL, Python, and Spark code alongside your team; this is not a supervisory role
* Data modeling - own the Gold layer schema that serves as the canonical member feature set for model training and batch scoring; make design decisions that balance flexibility, performance, and governance
* Data quality - build and maintain data quality checks, null/sparsity monitoring, and pipeline alerting so the team knows before anyone else when something is wrong
* External data integration - onboard new data sources (clinical feeds, government datasets, third-party signals) from raw ingestion through production-ready features
* Contractor management - manage data engineering contractors within your pod; set expectations, review work, and hold the team to quality standards
* Cross-functional partnership - work closely with the Principal Decision Intelligence Engineer on feature requirements, and with software engineering pods on how data flows into the decisioning system
** What You'll Need**
* * Sponsorship is not available for this role
** Bachelor's degree in computer science or relevant field
* 10+ years of data engineering experience with at least 1-2 years in a tech lead or senior lead capacity
* Deep hands-on experience with Databricks and Delta Lake - you have built and owned production pipelines, not just contributed to them
* Strong SQL and Python skills; comfortable with Spark at scale
* Experience designing and owning a medallion lakehouse architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold or equivalent)
* Proven ability to lead a small team or pod through delivery and manage contractor resources
* Strong data quality instincts - you treat bad data as a production incident
* Clear communicator - you can explain a pipeline design decision to a data scientist, a product owner, and a compliance officer
* Comfort using AI productivity tools (Claude, Copilot, or similar) to accelerate development and analysis
** Strong plus:
*** Masters degree
* Experience with Databricks Delta Live Tables, Unity Catalog, and Feature Store
* Familiarity with Kafka-based event pipelines and real-time data ingestion
* Background in healthcare, insurance, or other regulated industries with PHI/HIPAA data handling requirements
* Experience integrating government or third-party datasets (CMS, CDC, STARS, or similar)#
** Use your skills to make an impact
**** Work Style:
** Remote/Hybrid - Preferably Boston, MA.Occasional travel to Humana's offices for training or meetings may be required.
** Work Hours**:
Typical business hours are Monday-Friday, 8 hours/day, 5 days/week-- some flexibility might be possible, depending on business needs.

Very minimal travel might be required for training, meetings, and/or conferences
** Work at Home Requirements
** WAH requirements:
Must have the ability to provide a high-speed DSL or cable modem for a home office. Associates or contractors who live and work from home in the state of California will be provided with payment for their internet expense.

A minimum standard speed for optimal performance of 25x10 (25mpbs download x 10mpbs upload) is required.

Satellite and Wireless Internet service is NOT allowed for this role.

A dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information
**…