Principal Software Development Engineer

CVS Health; Phoenix (AZ); On-site; USD 144,000 - 288,000; Full time

Job summary

CVS Health is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to shape a next-generation compute platform powering PBM underwriting and financial metrics. You will lead architecture, mentor staff engineers, and own technical narratives for executives, focusing on scalable design and low-latency processing across hundreds of millions of records.

The role blends deep solution design, big-data architecture, and storytelling to translate financial logic into trusted systems for finance, actuarial, and

Qualifications

• 12+ years building production software systems; 3+ years at staff/principal scope.
• Big-data fluency at scale; hundreds of millions to billions of rows; latency/throughput considerations.
• System design depth; bounded services with clear contracts; evolution from day one.
• Architecture leadership; ADRs, design reviews, and standards enforcement via tooling.
• Solution design judgment; simple architecture that meets SLA; legacy-strangling vs rewrite decisions.
• Strong SQL and data-modeling skills; finance/actuarial metric debugging.
• Hands-on with Java ecosystem (Java, Spring Boot) and SQL-first persistence (JOOQ).
• Performance engineering; profiling, query plans, sub-second SLAs on large data.
• Clear communication; executive-ready design docs and narratives.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture decisions for a next-gen compute platform with strict latency SLAs.
• Mentor senior staff and engineers; drive cross-team alignment and ADRs.
• Translate business requirements into robust, scalable systems.
• Present technical narratives to VP/SVP audiences; demonstrate business value.

Skills

Senior engineer

Staff/Principal

Big data at scale

System design

ADR leadership

SQL fluency

Java/Spring Boot

Performance engineering

Cloud/CI-CD

Executive communication

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related

Master's preferred

Tools

JOOQ

Job description

We're building a world of health around every individual - shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you'll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger - helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.

Position Summary

Principal Software Engineer for the next-generation compute platform powering CVS Health's PBM underwriting and financial metrics across revenue, rebate, specialty, and P&L. You will set technical direction for a platform that processes hundreds of millions of claims-level records under tight latency SLAs, replacing a legacy compute engine. The role is equal parts deep solution design, big-data architecture, and storytelling - translating PBM financial logic into systems that finance, actuarial, and account teams trust and that engineering teams can extend without breaking. You will lead architecture decisions, mentor senior and staff engineers, and own the technical narrative with executive stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years building production software systems; 3+ years at staff/principal scope
• Big-data fluency at scale - designed and operated systems processing hundreds of millions to billions of rows; comfortable reasoning about throughput, latency, partitioning, and cost trade-offs across batch, streaming, and OLAP workloads
• System design depth - decomposes ambiguous business problems into bounded services with clear contracts; reasons about consistency, failure modes, backpressure, and evolution from day one
• Architecture leadership - drives ADRs and design reviews, sets standards (boundaries, testing strategy, schema evolution), and enforces them through tooling rather than tribal knowledge
• Solution design judgment - picks the simplest architecture that meets the SLA; knows when to strangle a legacy system versus rewrite, when to split a service versus keep it monolithic
• Strong analytics intuition - SQL fluency, data modeling, parity/reconciliation patterns, comfort partnering with finance and actuarial stakeholders to debug metric drift
• Hands‑on with modern JVM stacks (Java, Spring Boot, Gradle) and SQL‑first persistence (JOOQ or peer)
• Performance engineering - profiling, query‑plan reading, caching strategy, hitting sub‑second‑to‑low‑minute SLAs on large datasets
• Communication and presentation - produces white‑paper‑quality design docs, executive‑readable architecture narratives, and demos that move decisions; comfortable presenting to VP/SVP audiences
• Storytelling - frames technical work in business outcomes; turns metrics, migrations, and incidents into narratives stakeholders remember
• Technical leadership without authority - mentors staff/senior engineers, raises the hiring bar, drives cross‑squad alignment
• Cloud‑native delivery mindset - container‑first, observability‑first, CI/CD discipline, regardless of specific cloud
• PBM, healthcare claims, pharmacy pricing, rebates, Financial, or insurance underwriting domain experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience replacing or strangling a legacy compute/ETL engine in production without business freeze
• Experience with Azure databricks is preferred
• Hexagonal / ports‑and‑adapters architecture with enforcement (ArchUnit or equivalent)
• OLAP and columnar engines (StarRocks, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Snowflake, Druid)
• Streaming/event‑driven systems (Kafka), GraphQL gateways, multi‑tenant API design
• GCP (BigQuery, Vertex, Composer/Airflow) and/or Azure‑to‑GCP migration patterns
• Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, and modern CI/CD platforms
• Public technical writing, conference talks, or open‑source contribution

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related quantitative field; equivalent experience accepted
• Master's in CS, Data Science, or Applied Math preferred

Pay Range

The typical pay range for this role is:

$144,200.00 - $288,400.00

This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full‑time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls. The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors. This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short‑term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. This position also includes an award target in the company's equity award program.

Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

Great benefits for great people

We take pride in offering a comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits that reflects our commitment to our colleagues and their families.

This full‑time position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well‑being of colleagues and their families. The benefits for this position include medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, retirement savings options, wellness programs, and other resources, based on eligibility.

Additional details about available benefits are provided during the application process and on Benefits Moments.

We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on: 10/30/2026

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.