Senior Data Engineer — End-to-End Healthcare Data Pipelines

GRAIL; Durham (NC); On-site; USD 86,000 - 106,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match

Medical/dental/vision

Flexible time-off

Mindfulness programs

Job summary

GRAIL, a healthcare company focused on early cancer detection, is seeking a Senior Data Engineer for the Operational Technology team in RTP, North Carolina. You will own data pipelines connecting lab instruments, automation systems, and operational platforms to a trusted data foundation.

You will mentor engineers, define data architecture, and ensure data quality while collaborating across engineering, lab operations, data science, and automation teams in a fast-paced, regulated environment.

Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Software Engineering, Data Science, Life Sciences, Physics or similar field.
• Typically 3+ years of relevant professional experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or software development with a BS/BA degree; or 2+ with a Master’s degree; or equivalent practical experience.
• Advanced proficiency in SQL, including performance optimization and complex transformation logic.
• Strong proficiency with programming languages such as Python, Rust, C++, or similar.
• Solid understanding of ETL/ELT pipeline design, relational databases, data modeling, and structured or semi-structured data.
• Demonstrated ability to own data pipelines and infrastructure end to end and to work independently on problems of diverse scope.
• Strong attention to detail and a commitment to data quality, reliability and accuracy.
• Ability to collaborate with technical and non-technical stakeholders in a fast-changing environment.
• Ability to investigate complex technical problems methodically and communicate clearly.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and maintain complex data pipelines from lab instruments, automation systems, sequencers, platforms, APIs, and data sources.
• Own critical pipelines and data models end to end, designing through production operation.
• Define and evolve data architecture and engineering patterns adopted by the team.
• Deliver clean, trustworthy datasets for analytics, reporting, AI systems, and troubleshooting.
• Develop and optimize SQL transformation logic to model instrument and production data.
• Build and support datasets and models for dashboards, analytics, and governed AI workflows.
• Design orchestration, testing, monitoring, and alerting to identify data issues early.
• Establish data validation and quality standards across the platform.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to engineering practices and standards.
• Document pipelines and datasets for reproducibility and regulatory compliance.

Skills

SQL

Python

Rust

C++

ETL/ELT pipelines

Data modeling

Data quality

Education

BS/BA in CS/Math/Engineering

MS in a related field

Tools

Airflow

dbt

AWS S3

Redshift

Glue

Snowflake

Job description

GRAIL, a healthcare company focused on early cancer detection, is seeking a Senior Data Engineer for the Operational Technology team in RTP, North Carolina. You will own data pipelines connecting lab instruments, automation systems, and operational platforms to a trusted data foundation.

You will mentor engineers, define data architecture, and ensure data quality while collaborating across engineering, lab operations, data science, and automation teams in a fast-paced, regulated environment.