Sr. Sustaining and Forward Deployed Engineer New

Abacus Insights; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

Work from anywhere

Comprehensive health coverage

Equity for employees

Growth-focused environment

Home office setup allowance

Monthly cell phone allowance

Job summary

Abacus Insights is seeking a Sr. Sustaining and Forward Deployed Engineer to own production operations and post-launch reliability across our AWS-based platform. The role blends SRE, hands-on problem solving, and automation to improve system operability.

You will lead incidents, drive root-cause analysis, and translate learnings into durable product improvements while collaborating with customers and cross-functional teams to ensure scalable, reliable deployments.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, SRE, sustaining engineering, or production operations.
• Deep hands-on AWS production-system experience.
• Strong troubleshooting of Databricks and large-scale data platforms.
• Proficiency in Python and production tooling.
• Excellent incident management and RCA skills.
• Strong communication under pressure.

Responsibilities

• Act as senior escalation point during production incidents.
• Lead real-time incident triage, mitigation, and recovery.
• Perform root cause analysis with long-term fixes.
• Own post-launch reliability and operational quality of core systems.
• Develop automation to reduce toil and improve observability.
• Troubleshoot AWS, Databricks, and data pipelines; collaborate with customers and internal teams to deploy solutions.

Skills

AWS

Databricks

Python

Distributed systems

Incident management

CI/CD

Observability

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes (EKS)

EMR

Lambda

Snowflake

Job description

Sr. Sustaining and Forward Deployed Engineer

United States

About Us

Abacus Insights is transforming how data and AI work for health plans. Our mission is simple: make healthcare data usable, so the people responsible for care and cost decisions can act faster, with confidence.

As the AI Data Platform for Payer Intelligence, we help health plans break down data silos to create a single, trusted data foundation. That foundation powers better decisions—so plans can improve outcomes, reduce waste, and deliver better experiences for members and providers alike. Backed by $100M from top investors, we’re tackling big challenges in an industry that’s ready for change. Our platform enables GenAI use cases by delivering clean, connected, and reliable healthcare data to support automation, prioritization, and decision workflows—and it’s why we are leading the way.

We help health plans break down data silos to create a single, trusted data foundation. That foundation powers better decisions—so plans can improve outcomes, reduce waste, and deliver better experiences for members and providers alike. Backed by $100M from top investors, we’re tackling big challenges in an industry that’s ready for change. Our platform enables GenAI use cases by delivering clean, connected, and reliable healthcare data to support automation, prioritization, and decision workflows—and it’s why we are leading the way.

Our innovation begins with people. We are bold, curious, and collaborative—because the best ideas come from working together. We embrace the thoughtful use of AI and automation to drive innovation and efficiency, and we look for individuals who are curious and adaptable—those excited to leverage emerging technologies to enhance how we work—while keeping human insight, connection, and our clients at the center of every decision.

Ready to make an impact? Join us and let’s build the future together.

About the Role

The Senior Site Reliability Engineer – Forward Deployed (AWS & Databricks) is a senior individual contributor responsible for production operations, incident response, and post‑launch system reliability across Abacus Insights’ platform.

This role blends:

• SRE and production operations
• SWAT-style deep technical problem solving
• Hands‑on software development and automation

You will own themost complex, ambiguous, and high‑impact production issues, particularly those involvingAWS infrastructure, Databricks workloads, and large‑scale data pipelines. You will work directly with customers on escalations and deployments, while ensuring learnings are translated back into durable product and platform improvements.

This is ahands-on role. You are expected to lead technically during incidents, debug live systems, and write production code where it meaningfully improves reliability and operability.

Your day to day

Production Operations & Incident Response

• Act as asenior technical escalation pointduring production incidents
• Lead real-time incident triage, mitigation, and recovery efforts
• Driveroot cause analysis (RCA)with a focus on systemic, long-term fixes
• Identify recurring failure patterns and push for architectural or operational improvements
• Partner with Customer Success and Engineering to manage customer impact during incidents

Sustaining Engineering & Post‑Launch Ownership

• Ownpost-launch reliability, stability, and operational qualityof core systems
• Investigate and resolve complex field issues and production defects
• Ensure fixes developed during incidents or customer escalations areup streamed into the core product
• Improve operational readiness of services through better runbooks, monitoring, and alerting
• Reduce operational toil by converting repeated manual work into automation
• Engage directly with strategic customers to solvereal‑world, production‑grade technical challenges
• Support complex deployments, integrations, and escalations in customer environments
• Act as a trusted technical partner to customers during high‑impact issues
• Translate customer learnings intoconcrete product, platform, and operational improvements
• Contribute to reusable tools, playbooks, and best practices that accelerate future deployments

AWS & Databricks Technical Expertise

• Serve as a subject matter expert forAWS‑hosted production systems
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues across:
  • AWS compute, storage, networking, IAM, and security
  • Databricks jobs, clusters, and Spark‑based data pipelines
• Debug performance degradation, scalability issues, job failures, and data correctness problems
• Partner with platform and data teams to harden systems forreliability, scale, and operability

Software Development & Automation

• Writeproduction‑quality codeto:
  • Automate operational workflows
  • Improve reliability and observability
  • Eliminate manual intervention and reduce incident frequency
• Contribute primarily inPython, with exposure to JVM‑based systems as needed
• Review code with a strong emphasis onoperability, resiliency, and maintainability
• Advocate for “build it so it can be operated” engineering standards

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Providetechnical leadership without formal authority, influencing design and operational decisions
• Mentor engineers through pairing, reviews, and incident leadership
• Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Data, and Customer teams
• Operate effectively inhigh‑pressure, ambiguous environments, especially during customer‑impacting incidents

What you bring to the team

• 10+ years of experience insoftware engineering, SRE, sustaining engineering, or production operations
• Deep hands‑on experience operatingproduction systems in AWS
• Strong experience troubleshootingDatabricks and large‑scale data platforms
• Proficiency inPythonand experience building production services or tooling
• Strong understanding of:
  • Distributed systems
  • Incident management and RCA practices
  • Monitoring, alerting, and observability
  • CI/CD Pipelines that leverage Infrastructure as Code.
• Proven ability to own problemsend‑to‑end, from detection to permanent resolution
• Excellent communication skills, especially during incidents and customer escalations
• Ability to work backward from customer impact to root cause across systems and codebases, delivering fixes in environments with minimal documentation.
• Strong instinct for operational risk, with the ability to proactively identify failure modes and harden systems before they impact customers.

What we would like to see, but not required

• Experience inhealthcare, health insurance, or regulated data environments
• Familiarity with:
  • Kubernetes (EKS), EMR, Lambda
  • Spark internals
  • Snowflake or similar data warehouses
• Experience with FHIR, MDM systems, or entity resolution
• Prior experience inSWAT, escalation engineering, or tiger‑team roles
• Experience contributing to or operating within SRE/on‑call programs

Compensation:

Compensation for this role is based on experience, skills, and location, and includes base salary plus eligibility for performance bonuses and equity grants.

What you’ll get in return:

• Unlimited paid time off– recharge when you need it
• Work from anywhere– flexibility to fit your life
• Comprehensive health coverage– multiple plan options to choose from
• Equity for every employee– share in our success
• Growth‑focused environment– your development matters here
• Home office setup allowance– one‑time support to get you started
• Monthly cell phone allowance– stay connected with ease

Our Commitment as an Equal Opportunity Employer

As a mission‑led technology company helping to drive better healthcare outcomes, Abacus Insights believes that the best innovation and value we can bring to our customers comes from diverse ideas, thoughts, experiences, and perspectives. Therefore, we dedicate resources to building diverse teams and providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants. Abacus prohibits discrimination and harassment regarding race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

At the heart of who we are is a commitment to continuously and intentionally building an inclusive culture—one that empowers every team member across the globe to do their best work and bring their authentic selves. We carry that same commitment into our hiring process, aiming to create an interview experience where you feel comfortable and confident showcasing your strengths. If there’s anything we can do to support that—big or small—please let us know.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Abacus Insights’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

AI Use in Recruitment

We use AI-powered tools throughout our recruitment process. This includes Greenhouse's Real Talent Matching Technology, which helps prioritize applications based on job‑related criteria, as well as additional AI tools used to support sourcing, interview preparation, and other recruiting tasks. We do not remove the human element—our recruiters and hiring teams review all applications and make all decisions related to candidate progression and hiring, regardless of which tools are used to support that process.

By applying, you acknowledge that we will collect and process your personal information for recruiting purposes in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Please review our Applicant Privacy Notice for more information, including your rights.