Lead Software Engineer - NBA

Humana Inc; Ashburn (VA); Hybrid; USD 129,000 - 178,000; Full time

Job summary

Humana Inc. is seeking a Lead Full Stack Engineer to own the NBA platform orchestration and its state machine. Built in Node.js/TypeScript on Temporal, the role drives durable workflow execution and reliable action delivery across member journeys at enterprise scale.

As a hands-on technical leader, you will write code, mentor a small pod, and ensure durability, correctness, and observability of delivery across channels and integrations with AEP and Kafka.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field.
• 6+ years of full-stack software engineering with leadership experience.
• Strong Node.js/TypeScript backend work building production services.
• Hands-on with workflow orchestration platforms (Temporal preferred).
• Experience with Kafka producer/consumer patterns in production.
• Ability to lead a small pod and communicate architecture decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery for orchestration pod, including planning and shipping.
• Design durable workflows on Temporal modeling lifecycle and activations.
• Own action delivery pipeline from decision publication to receipt processing.
• Implement Transactional Outbox, idempotency, retries, and dead-letter handling.
• Integrate activations to external platforms and Kafka outputs.
• Contribute code and mentor engineers; maintain observability and reliability.
• Collaborate with decisioning, activation, and platform teams.

Skills

Node.js/TypeScript

Temporal workflows

Kafka event streams

Distributed systems

Team leadership

Azure / Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science

Tools

Temporal

Kafka

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Become a part of our caring community The Lead Full Stack Engineer owns the NBA platform's orchestration and state machine — the system that carries a decision from the moment it is made to the moment it is activated, delivered, and acknowledged across member engagement channels. Built in Node.js/TypeScript on the Temporal workflow platform, the solution manages durable workflow execution, long-running member journeys, and reliable action delivery through Transactional Outbox and Kafka-based event patterns. This role owns the critical path between decision generation, activation, delivery, and receipt processing, ensuring actions are executed correctly, consistently, and at enterprise scale. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role: you write code, lead a small team of engineers and contractors, and are accountable end‑to‑end for the durability, correctness, observability, and timeliness of action delivery across the member journey.

Key Responsibilities

• Pod delivery — Own end‑to‑end delivery for the orchestration pod: planning, execution, quality, and shipping on time.
• Workflow orchestration — Design and build durable, long-running workflows on Temporal in Node.js/TypeScript that model the member action lifecycle, state transitions, scheduling, activation, and delivery outcomes.
• Action delivery architecture — Own the end‑to‑end action delivery pipeline from decision publication through activation, delivery acknowledgment, and state reconciliation. Design and implement Transactional Outbox patterns, atomic persist-and-publish workflows, idempotency controls, retry/backoff mechanisms, dead‑letter queue handling, and delivery receipt processing.
• Activation integrations — Own the components that activate decisions to Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) and publish through Kafka output patterns to downstream channels. Define delivery contracts, activation guarantees, and receipt ingestion patterns that ensure reliable action execution.
• Hands‑on development — Contribute code alongside the team, including Temporal workflows and activities, Node.js services, Kafka producers and consumers, outbox processors, and integration services.
• Technical decisions — Make the day‑to‑day architecture decisions for the pod, including workflow design, state machine modeling, retry and compensation strategies, idempotency, topic strategy, schema evolution, delivery guarantees, and API contracts.
• Distributed systems reliability — Engineer for correctness in a highly asynchronous environment. Ensure exactly‑once business intent through idempotent consumers, deduplication strategies, durable state management, safe retries, and graceful failure handling.
• Observability and operations — Establish monitoring, tracing, alerting, and operational visibility across workflow execution, event publication, activation processing, and delivery acknowledgment pipelines.
• Team leadership — Manage and mentor engineers and contractors; run code reviews, uphold engineering standards, and keep the team unblocked and moving.
• Cross‑team coordination — Coordinate interfaces with decisioning, the Action Library, activation systems, and the platform team; surface dependencies, integration risks, and operational concerns early.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or relevant area
• 6+ years of full stack software engineering experience, with at least 1–2 years in a tech‑lead or senior‑lead capacity.
• Strong Node.js/TypeScript backend experience building production services.
• Hands‑on experience with workflow orchestration platforms, with Temporal strongly preferred (or comparable technologies such as Cadence, Step Functions, or Airflow for durable workflows).
• Strong distributed systems fundamentals, including event‑driven architectures, asynchronous processing, retries, idempotency, and failure recovery.
• Experience designing and implementing Kafka producer and consumer patterns in production environments.
• Experience building reliable event delivery systems using Transactional Outbox, event‑driven integration patterns, or comparable messaging architectures.
• Demonstrated ability to lead a small pod through delivery and be accountable for technical outcomes.
• Experience operating cloud‑native systems on Azure or equivalent cloud infrastructure using Kubernetes, containers, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Clear communicator who can represent the pod’s architecture, delivery status, operational risks, and tradeoffs to technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Production experience with Temporal at scale, including workflow versioning, long‑running workflow management, and operational lifecycle management.
• Deep experience implementing Transactional Outbox patterns, delivery acknowledgment workflows, dead‑letter queue management, receipt reconciliation, and exactly‑once processing semantics.
• Experience integrating Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) or comparable activation and engagement platforms.
• Experience with Kafka ecosystem tooling, event schema governance, and large‑scale event‑driven architectures.
• Familiarity with the wider NBA platform stack, including React/TypeScript, Java services, and Decision Intelligence systems.
• Experience with Helm, Terraform, and Kubernetes-based deployment patterns.
• Background in healthcare, insurance, or another regulated industry with PHI handling, auditability, and compliance requirements.

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.

Interview Format

As part of our hiring process, we will be using on‑demand technology provided by Hire Vue, a third‑party vendor. This technology provides our team of recruiters and hiring managers with an enhanced method for decision‑making through on‑demand candidate assessments. If you are selected to move forward from your application prescreen, you will receive correspondence inviting you to participate in an on‑demand assessment with pre‑determined questions. You should anticipate the assessment to take approximately 10‑15 minutes. Your on‑demand assessment will be reviewed, and you will subsequently be informed if you will be moving forward to next round of interviews. SSN Task via Workday. Should you be extended a formal employment offer you will receive a request to enter your SSN into our Workday system to scan for duplicate profiles.

Work at Home Requirements

To ensure Home or Hybrid Home/Office employees’ ability to work effectively, the self‑provided internet service of Home or Hybrid Home/Office employees must meet the following criteria: At minimum, a download speed of 25 Mbps and an upload speed of 10 Mbps is required; wireless, wired cable or DSL connection is suggested. In certain roles, the minimum recommended internet speed required by Humana may not be sufficient for business needs. Humana reserves the right to require associates to upgrade their internet service if necessary. Work from a dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information.

Travel

While this is a remote position, occasional travel to Humana's offices for training or meetings may be required.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Pay Range

The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of starting base pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individual pay will vary based on demonstrated job related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc. $129,300 - $177,800 per year This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offers competitive benefits that support whole‑person well‑being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short‑term and long‑term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

Application Deadline

09-29-2026

About us

About Humana: Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is a leading U.S. healthcare company. Through our Humana insurance services and our CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare and Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. Learn more about what we offer atHumana.comand atCenterWell.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.