Principal Data Engineer

Color Employer, LLC; Tennessee; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 271,000; Full time

Job summary

Lyric is seeking a Principal Data Engineer to own the technical roadmap and architecture for the Data Platform. You will define canonical data models and build a unified, multi-tenant framework with strong data quality and observability.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with infrastructure and application teams, and drive self-service data provisioning to enable rapid, governed data access. This role requires deep data modeling, Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, Python and SQL expertise.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or a related field.
• 10+ years of data engineering, including 3+ years at Principal level owning architecture and technical direction for a data platform or major data domain.
• Deep data modeling expertise, with canonical/shared data models serving multiple consumers.
• Experience architecting multi-tenant data platforms with tenant isolation and shared models.
• 3+ years with Snowflake, including Snowflake features and RBAC.
• Production experience with dbt and Airflow, including scalable project structuring.
• Strong programming in Python and extensive SQL/SnowSQL.
• Hands-on data quality and observability into pipelines with validation and lineage.
• Experience building internal data platforms/tools with declarative configuration.
• Track record of consolidating architectures without disrupting consumers.
• Excellent presentation skills translating technical concepts to business value.
• Ability to lead through influence and mentor engineers toward ownership.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and architecture for the Data Platform and present to engineering leadership.
• Define the canonical data model for Lyric's core data domains across consumer products.
• Architect a unified data framework with sources, transformations, outputs, and validations under version control.
• Establish data quality and observability with automated validations and end-to-end visibility.
• Design and lead self-service data provisioning for tenant declarations, mappings, and validations.
• Define Snowflake governance, including schema standards, access controls, and authoritative data definitions.
• Mentor senior engineers to grow architectural judgment and data modeling depth.
• Promote data modeling expertise through documentation and lunch-and-learns.
• Contribute to data stewardship and ensure data assets are safe, usable, and compliant.

Skills

Data architecture

Data modeling

Python

SQL

Big data

Leadership

Data governance

Presentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or related field

Tools

dbt

Airflow

Snowflake

Job description

Position Overview

Principal Data Engineer, Data Platform Position Overview As Principal Data Engineer, you will own the technical roadmap and architecture for Lyric's Data Platform. This is a foundational, high-influence role. You will define the canonical data model for our core healthcare data domains, architect a unified framework for how data is ingested, transformed, validated, and served across a multi-tenant platform, and establish the quality and observability guarantees our consuming teams build against. You will also design the self-service capability that allows new consumers to onboard through configuration rather than custom engineering. You will serve as the most senior technical voice in the function, working directly with the Director of Engineering to set technical direction, partnering with application and infrastructure teams across the company, and raising the architectural capability of the engineers around you. The scope is deliberately durable: the models, standards, and operating framework you establish are the ones Lyric will extend to new data domains as the business grows. If you want architecture ownership with genuine reach where the decisions, you make shape how an entire company works with its data this is that role.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and architecture for the Data Platform, translating business priorities into a sequenced technical strategy and presenting it to engineering leadership.


• Define the canonical data model for Lyric's core data domains, derived from real consumer requirements across all consumer products.


• Architect a unified data framework with clearly declared sources, transformations, outputs, and validations, fully under version control.


• Establish the data quality and observability practice: automated validation at defined stages, freshness and quality SLAs we publish and hold, and end-to-end visibility into data flow.


• Design and lead delivery of self-service data provisioning, where a consuming team declares the tenants, fields, mappings, and validations it needs and receives governed data without custom-built pipelines.


• Define Snowflake data governance in partnership with infrastructure teams: schema and modeling standards, access and permissions model, and the definition of authoritative data.


• Mentor senior engineers, growing architectural judgment and data modeling depth across the team.


• Serve as Lyric's recognized authority on data modeling through documentation, design review, and enablement such as lunch-and-learns establishing the Data Platform team as the group other teams come to for expertise.


• Contribute to Lyric's data stewardship practice, ensuring data assets are accessible, usable, safe, and trusted, with quality, integrity, and compliance with data governance policies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or a related field.


• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, including 3+ years at Principal level owning architecture and technical direction for a data platform or major data domain.


• Deep data modeling expertise, with demonstrated experience designing canonical or shared data models that serve multiple consumers with competing requirements showing the judgment to decide what belongs in a shared model versus a consumer-specific extension.


• Experience architecting multi-tenant data platforms, including tenant isolation, per-tenant variance, and consolidating per-customer implementations into shared models.


• 3+ years with Snowflake, with demonstrated expertise across streams and tasks, Snowpipe ingestion, RBAC and access modeling, resource monitors, scalable virtual warehouses, SQL performance tuning, zero-copy clone, time travel, clustering, and micro-partitions.


• Production experience with modern ELT and orchestration tooling, dbt and Airflow specifically including how to structure a dbt project for maintainability at scale.


• Strong programming expertise in Python, and extensive SQL and SnowSQL experience developing transformations, stored procedures, and analytical queries.


• Hands-on experience building data quality and observability into pipelines - validation frameworks, testing, freshness and anomaly monitoring, lineage, and alerting.


• Experience building internal data platforms or tooling that other teams self-serve on, replacing bespoke, request-driven delivery with declarative configuration.


• Track record of architectural consolidation: unifying parallel systems and retiring legacy platforms without disrupting the consumers depending on them.


• Excellent presentation skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and business audiences in terms of business value and impact.


• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence and setting standards adopted by teams you don't manage, and mentoring engineers toward greater technical ownership.

Join Lyric

#LI-DNI Join our mission to drive innovation, technical excellence and global impact and contribute to the development of groundbreaking software solutions to shape the future of healthcare.

Salary

The US base salary range for this full-time position is: $180,347.00 - $270,521.00 The specific salary offered to a candidate may be influenced by a variety of factors including but not limited to the candidate's relevant experience, education, and work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and does not reflect the value of the total rewards compensation.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lyric is an Equal Opportunity Employer that strives to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace collaborative success.

Lyric is the trusted leader in healthcare decision intelligence. Built on more than 35 years of proven results, Lyric combines responsible AI with clinical, payment, regulatory, and policy expertise to deliver transparent, auditable insights in milliseconds across real-time claims workflows. Lyric augments human decision-making so health plans can make faster, more accurate payments while maintaining full control. Today, Lyric supports 200 million lives, with nine of the top 10 U.S. health plans relying on its platform to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and support accurate payments.