Principal Data Engineer

Cedar; United States; On-site; USD 246,500 - 311,750; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

16 weeks paid parental leave

401(k) matching

Job summary

Cedar is looking for a Principal Data Architect & Engineer to lead the design of a new high-scale data model and architecture. This hands-on role emphasizes technical leadership, where you will ensure the accuracy of core business metrics and build production code alongside a team of Data Engineers.

The ideal candidate has over 10 years of data engineering experience, expertise in building production-grade pipelines, and a passion for AI technologies. Flexible work arrangements and a competitive benefits package are offered.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of shipping production enterprise systems.
• Deep proficiency with data technologies such as Snowflake and dbt.
• Built data APIs and feature stores that power downstream ML applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and execution of a new high-scale data model.
• Ensure metrics reliability and build validation frameworks.
• Build the real-time data foundations powering AI-driven products.

Skills

Data engineering

Back-end systems

Snowflake

Python

ML/AI applications

Education

10+ years of experience in data engineering

Tools

SQL

Kafka

Airflow

Job description

Principal Data Architect & Engineer

This role is a hands‑on technical leadership position for an engineer who loves building production systems at scale and views AI as a massive accelerator for both personal and team productivity.

What You’ll Do

• Architect the Future‑State Data Model & Storage: Lead the design and execution of a new, high‑scale data model and storage architecture that lives outside our legacy monolith. Drive decisions on service boundaries, data ownership, and storage patterns—implementing Medallion architecture (Bronze, Silver, Gold layers) to ensure progressive data quality refinement—while defining the API contracts that will anchor our data strategy for years to come. This includes real‑time event‑driven pipelines and streaming architectures alongside batch analytics.
• Ensure Metrics Reliability: Own the accuracy and reliability of core business metrics including collection rate, days in AR, and invoice balance tracking. Design validation frameworks that ensure our source of truth remains consistent across all reporting and product surfaces.
• Power Intelligent Agents: Build the real‑time data foundations that power our AI‑driven products, ensuring agents, like Kora, have the context, entity graphs, and metrics they need to act autonomously in revenue cycle workflows and transform the patient experience.
• Design for the Future: Design data models for new product lines that expand our presence across the full revenue cycle from pre‑service through post‑service collections.
• Build Production Code: Write, ship, and maintain high‑quality production code alongside our team of Data Engineers. Personally model critical domains and implement core patterns that the rest of the team will follow.
• Guide and Mentor Engineers: Act as the technical role model for a team of Data Engineers. Raise the bar for engineering excellence through rigorous code reviews, design guidance, and technical mentorship, turning every challenge into a growth opportunity for the team.
• Collaborate: Drive technical alignment across data engineering, platform, and product teams, set priorities, unblock dependencies, and ensure delivery against customer‑facing commitments.
• Steward Data Integrity: Define and enforce standards for our enterprise Data Dictionary and metadata strategy. Partner with engineering and product to ensure data is accurate, discoverable, and synchronized across all environments.

What You Bring

• Strategic Technical Authority: 10+ years of experience in data engineering and back‑end systems at scale, leading large technical projects with a high accountability mentality and proven track record of shipping production enterprise systems.
• Modern Stack Mastery: Deep proficiency with data and engineering technologies and patterns such as Snowflake, dbt, Liquibase, Fivetran, Airflow, OpenMetadata, Kafka, SQL, Python, CDC, and real‑time data processing. Built production‑grade ELT/ETL pipelines and managed complex data transformations in cloud‑first environments.
• Metrics & Integrity Focus: Built 'source of truth' systems and a passion for data accuracy. Designed and audited key business metrics to ensure resilience to system changes. Experienced with data validation, reconciliation, and diagnosing discrepancies.
• ML/AI Fuel: Built data APIs, context systems, or feature stores that power downstream ML/AI applications.
• Architectural Judgment: Spot over‑engineering and under‑engineering with confidence, design for resilience, modularity, and backward compatibility, preferring incremental milestones over big‑bang deliverables.
• Clear Communication: Translate complex technical risks and trade‑offs into business‑relevant terms for senior stakeholders and cross‑functional partners.
• AI‑Native Workflow: Avid learner and adopter of AI engineering tools, directing AI agents to generate complete, high‑quality solutions and owning the output.
• Healthcare Domain Expertise (highly preferred): Demonstrable understanding of healthcare concepts, including revenue cycle management, billing, and insurance adjudication.

Compensation Range and Benefits

• Salary/Hourly Rate Range*: $246,500 – $311,750
• Equity eligibility
• Competitive benefits and wellness package

*Subject to location, experience, and education

What do we offer to the ideal candidate?

• Opportunity to improve the U.S. healthcare system at a high‑growth company.
• Flexibility to work from home or in the office, depending on preference.
• Unlimited PTO for exempt employees; at least 20 vacation days per year are encouraged.
• 16 weeks paid parental leave with health benefits for all parents, plus flexible re‑entry schedules.
• Diversity initiatives and support for employee resource groups.
• Competitive pay, equity (for qualifying roles), and health benefits, including fertility and adoption assistance starting on the first of the month following your start date.
• 401(k) matching: 100% match up to 3% of annual compensation.
• Access to mentorship, coaching, and a discretionary budget for learning and development resources.