Forward Deployed Data Engineer, Data Modernizaton Organization
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
This is the role where the data actually moves. As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer on the Data Modernization team, you own the platform-specific build that takes a health system from legacy connectivity - flat files, manual SFTP, a half-finished Clarity database - to a modern, AI-ready lakehouse that can serve our agentic AI workflows at full speed.
You are the deep platform expert for your stack. During an active engagement, you serve as the platform-specific technical lead under the Principal Solutions Architect: you own the ingestion, the medallion architecture, the governance configuration, and the data-sharing pattern on your platform. Between engagements, you sustain our production environments, build the accelerators and reusable IP that make the next engagement faster, support pre-sales technical discovery, and cross-train on the other platforms so the team stays flexible.
These are time-boxed, high-stakes builds. A greenfield foundation goes from zero to a live AI workflow in roughly ten weeks; an acceleration engagement folds hundreds of Clarity tables into an existing lakehouse on weeks-to-months timelines. You'll ship production-grade work in a regulated environment, where "done" means it's governed, documented, and ready to hand to the integration team - not just that the pipeline ran once.
Key Responsibilities
- Work forward-deployed inside the customer's environment: partner directly with their data and IT teams, present design decisions and progress to their technical leadership, and represent QH on-site during kickoffs and key milestones
- Own platform-specific architecture and build for your stack during active engagements, as technical lead under the Principal Solutions Architect
- Design and implement ingestion from EHR and source systems (Epic Clarity / Caboodle, FHIR, ERP, scheduling, claims) into a medallion lakehouse
- Build and harden change-data-capture, transformation, and orchestration pipelines that meet engagement timelines
- Configure governance, access control, and the data-sharing pattern that hands clean, AI-ready data to QH's platform (Delta Sharing, Fabric External Sharing, Snowflake Reader Accounts, or equivalent)
- Sustain production environments handed off from prior engagements, and develop reusable accelerators and IP that compress the next build
- Support pre-sales technical discovery and source-data assessment alongside the Principal SA
- Ensure every environment meets handoff criteria for the Client Integration team - governed, documented, reproducible
- Cross-train on the other two platforms to keep the team flexible across single- and multi-engagement states
Requirements
- 8+ years in data engineering or data platform roles, at a Senior or Staff IC level
- Client-facing maturity - comfortable working on-site in a customer's environment and presenting technical work to their data and IT leadership
- Deep, hands-on expertise in at least one of Databricks, Snowflake, or Microsoft Fabric (see platform note above)
- Has shipped production data workloads in a regulated environment (HIPAA, HITRUST, or comparable)
- Strong in Python and distributed data processing (PySpark or equivalent), plus SQL and modern transformation tooling
- Comfortable as the sole platform expert on an engagement - you can own a build, not just contribute to one
- Infrastructure-as-code fluency (Terraform) and CI/CD discipline (GitHub Actions)
Platform-Specific Depth (own one)
- Databricks: Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Delta Sharing, Delta Live Tables, Photon. Bonus: production Databricks experience inside a health system or Databricks partner consultancy.
- Snowflake: Snowpark, Reader Accounts, Streams & Tasks, Dynamic Tables, Snowpipe, strong dbt fluency. Bonus: Epic Clarity inside Snowflake.
- Microsoft Fabric: OneLake, SQL Server Mirroring for CDC, Fabric Data Factory, Fabric External Sharing, Iceberg shortcuts. Bonus: prior Azure Synapse / ADF / Databricks-on-Azure background. (The rarest and most sought-after of the three - Fabric is the newest platform.)
Ideal Experience
- Resident / customer-success solutions architect or engineer from a cloud data platform vendor (Databricks, Snowflake, Microsoft FastTrack / CSU)
- Senior data engineer from a health system running on your platform, or from a platform-partner consultancy
- Familiarity with EHR data models and the realities of on-prem-to-cloud CDC
- Background in consulting, professional services, or data platform implementation in regulated industries (healthcare strongly preferred; fintech a strong adjacent)
Desirable Skills
- Ownership: You're the one person on the engagement who deeply knows this platform, and you carry that weight without needing a second set of hands on every decision.
- Pragmatism: You know the difference between architecturally ideal and deliverable-in-ten-weeks, and you optimize for the latter without creating technical debt.
- Reusability mindset: You build the second engagement's accelerator while delivering the first, because you've felt the cost of bespoke-everything.
- Clinical-data literacy: Clarity and Caboodle don't scare you; you understand why health system data is messy and you've untangled it before.
- Cross-platform curiosity: Your depth is in one stack, but you're glad to learn the other two so the team can flex across engagements.
Technical Environment
- Databricks (primary), Microsoft Fabric, and Snowflake - fully platform-agnostic on acceleration engagements
- PySpark and Python with type-safe patterns and modern frameworks
- GitHub Actions + Terraform for CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code
- Healthcare data formats including FHIR, Epic Clarity / Caboodle, and other EHR schemas
- HIPAA / HITRUST-regulated cloud environments on Azure and AWS, Access Control, Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Category Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cisco Unity, Clinical Data, Cloud Computing, Consulting, Customer Relations, Data Analysis, Data Formats, Data Modeling, Data Processing, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), Epic Caboodle, Epic Clarity, Epic Systems, Healthcare, IP (Internet Protocol), Insurance, Integrated Circuits (ICs), Leadership, Literacy, Medical Record System, Microsoft Product Family, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Patient Care, Pre-Sales, Process Improvement, Production Systems, Professional Services, Python Programming/Scripting Language, SQL (Structured Query Language), Sales Support, Secure/SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), Snowflake Schema, Software Engineering, Sustainability, Team Building, Team Lead/Manager, Technical Leadership, Technical Presentation, Technical Sales, Time Tracking, Transformation Tools
Benefits & conditions
This is an opportunity to join a fast-growing company and a world-class team that is poised to change the healthcare industry. We are a passionate, mission-driven team that is building a category-defining product. We are backed by premier investors and are looking for founding team members who are excited to do the best work of their careers.
The work here is unusually high-leverage: every health system you modernize removes the single biggest bottleneck to deploying AI across our entire partner base. You'll be the named platform expert on real, in-flight engagements - not one engineer of fifty, but the person who owns the build.
Our employees are integral to achieving our goals, so we are proud to offer competitive salaries with equity packages, robust medical/dental/vision insurance, flexible working hours, hybrid work options, and an inclusive environment that fosters creativity and innovation.
Our Commitment to Diversity, The base pay range for this role is between $180,000 and $230,000. Final offer depends on your skills, qualifications, experience, platform specialization, and location. This role is also eligible for equity, benefits, unlimited PTO.