Staff Engineer - Data Platform & APIs

Ellkay, Llc; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision benefits

Employer-paid Life and LTD

401k with matching

Remote work options

Gym membership / stipends

Job summary

ELLKAY is hiring a Staff Engineer - Data Platform & APIs to lead the design and development of scalable backend services, data pipelines, and cloud-native components. You will set API standards, build reusable data services, and drive operational excellence across teams in a hybrid work setup.

The role emphasizes security, observability, and enterprise-grade architecture, with collaboration across Data Platform, Data Architecture, Migration, and AI/ML teams.

Qualifications

• Strong experience building enterprise backend platforms and APIs.
• Hands-on data-engineering experience involving ingestion, transformation, and large-scale processing.
• Experience with AWS and modern cloud-native architecture.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, API design, event-driven processing, security, and observability.
• Ability to operate as a senior technical leader across multiple teams.
• Healthcare data or interoperability experience is preferred but not required

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable backend services, APIs, data pipelines, and platform components.
• Define standards for REST APIs, asynchronous APIs, event-driven processing, batch interfaces, versioning, authentication, authorization, retries, and idempotency.
• Develop reusable services for ingestion, transformation, validation, reconciliation, data access, and workflow orchestration.
• Build cloud-native solutions using AWS, Snowflake, SQL, Python, Java or equivalent backend technologies.
• Design services capable of supporting large-scale healthcare data processing while maintaining security, reliability, and auditability.
• Establish reusable API contracts, SDKs, templates, and engineering patterns for product and platform teams.
• Implement automated testing, CI/CD, infrastructure integration, observability, logging, metrics, alerting, and operational dashboards.
• Improve the performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency of platform services and data-processing workloads.
• Partner with Data Platform, Data Architecture, Migration, LKOasis, LKOpera, eMPI, Interoperability, and AI/ML teams.
• Lead technical design reviews and guide teams on backend, API, data-processing, and cloud architecture decisions.
• Mentor engineers and raise engineering standards without having direct employee-management responsibility.
• Investigate complex production issues and lead root-cause analysis and permanent remediation.
• Create architecture documentation, API specifications, operating procedures, and reusable implementation guides.

Skills

Backend architecture

Data engineering

Cloud-native

Distributed systems

API design

Technical leadership

Healthcare data familiarity

Tools

AWS

SQL

Python

Java

Job description

If you are unable to complete this application due to a disability, contact this employer to ask for an accommodation or an alternative application process.

Full Time US

Salary Range: $180,000.00 To $200,000.00 Annually

ELLKAY started out providing connectivity solutions to laboratories and within a few years, grew to also provide data management solutions to ambulatory organizations. ELLKAY is now a trusted data management partner in five healthcare segments. ELLKAY’s solutions continue to serve laboratories and ambulatory practices and have expanded to empower hospitals and health systems, healthcare IT vendors, ambulatory practices, health plans, and other healthcare organizations with cutting-edge technologies and solutions that drive their growth and interoperability strategies. Today, ELLKAY remains true to our core values, building strong partner relationships and offering unparalleled service and support while providing innovative, scalable solutions to the challenges our customers face in today’s data-rich world. ELLKAY's experience, customer-focused approach, and reputation for innovation, speed, and accuracy differentiate ELLKAY as a premier partner for your interoperability needs and data management strategy.

Job Description:

The Staff Engineer - Data Platform & APIs will serve as a senior individual contributor responsible for designing and building scalable backend services, APIs, data-processing capabilities, and cloud-native components for ELLKAY’s shared Data Platform.

This role will provide technical leadership across backend engineering, data engineering, API architecture, and cloud platform development. The Staff Engineer will work closely with the Director of Data Platform, architects, product engineering teams, and technology leaders to establish reusable enterprise capabilities rather than product-specific implementations.

• Design and build scalable backend services, APIs, data pipelines, and platform components.

Define standards for REST APIs, asynchronous APIs, event-driven processing, batch interfaces, versioning, authentication, authorization, retries, and idempotency.

Develop reusable services for ingestion, transformation, validation, reconciliation, data access, and workflow orchestration.

Build cloud-native solutions using AWS, Snowflake, SQL, Python, Java or equivalent backend technologies.

Design services capable of supporting large-scale healthcare data processing while maintaining security, reliability, and auditability.

Establish reusable API contracts, SDKs, templates, and engineering patterns for product and platform teams.

Implement automated testing, CI/CD, infrastructure integration, observability, logging, metrics, alerting, and operational dashboards.

Improve the performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency of platform services and data-processing workloads.

Partner with Data Platform, Data Architecture, Migration, LKOasis, LKOpera, eMPI, Interoperability, and AI/ML teams.

Lead technical design reviews and guide teams on backend, API, data-processing, and cloud architecture decisions.

Mentor engineers and raise engineering standards without having direct employee-management responsibility.

Investigate complex production issues and lead root-cause analysis and permanent remediation.

Create architecture documentation, API specifications, operating procedures, and reusable implementation guides.

Qualifications:

Strong experience building enterprise backend platforms and APIs.

Hands-on data-engineering experience involving ingestion, transformation, and large-scale processing.

Experience with AWS and modern cloud-native architecture.

Strong understanding of distributed systems, API design, event-driven processing, security, and observability.

Ability to operate as a senior technical leader across multiple teams.

Healthcare data or interoperability experience is preferred but not required

ELLKAY offers a comprehensive and competitive benefit package that starts day one!

Including:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits
• Employer-paid Life and LTD
• 401k w/ matching – once eligibility is met
• Work/life balance
• Generous FTO
• Remote work options
• Employee Discounts
• Gym membership / Exercise class stipends

Our awesome culture includes:

• Working with talented, collaborative, and friendly people who love what they do
• Professional growth within
• Innovation environment
• On site in HQ Free daily lunches

Awards:

• 2025 Top Workplaces Employee Appreciation
• 2025 Top Workplaces Employee Well-Being
• 2025 Top Workplaces Professional Development
• 2026 NJ Top Workplaces

Additional information

At ELLKAY, we are committed to operating as a hybrid workplace, offering employees flexibility in how they structure their time between in‑office and remote work. We recognize the significance of fostering connections, collaboration, and creativity within our office culture and its positive impact on our business. Our philosophy of operating as a hybrid workplace underscores our dedication to enabling employees to tailor work‑life balance to their individual preferences. For those who do not live within 40 miles of one of our offices, we are open to considering remote work for candidates whose skills and experience strongly align with the role. While we prioritize a hybrid work environment for most roles, we understand the importance of flexibility and are open to remote work for specific positions and specialized skill sets.

For more information on our company, visit www.ELLKAY.com.

ELLKAY LLC is a Smoke-Free Workplace.

ELLKAY, LLC provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to 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.