Principal Data Engineer

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The Principal Data Engineer owns the design and delivery of the NBA platform's data pipelines on the Databricks Lakehouse. This is a hands-on engineering role first - you are expected to be a significant individual contributor building production pipelines every sprint. You also lead a small team of data engineers and contractors, and are accountable for the quality, reliability, and timeliness of the data that feeds the platform's AI models and decisioning system.

What You'll Own

Pipeline delivery - design, build, and own the Bronze/Silver/Gold lakehouse pipelines that power the NBA platform: member profiles, clinical signals, behavioral data, web clickstream, and socioeconomic features

Hands-on development - actively write and ship production SQL, Python, and Spark code alongside your team; this is not a supervisory role

Data modeling - own the Gold layer schema that serves as the canonical member feature set for model training and batch scoring; make design decisions that balance flexibility, performance, and governance

Data quality - build and maintain data quality checks, null/sparsity monitoring, and pipeline alerting so the team knows before anyone else when something is wrong

External data integration - onboard new data sources (clinical feeds, government datasets, third-party signals) from raw ingestion through production-ready features

Contractor management - manage data engineering contractors within your pod; set expectations, review work, and hold the team to quality standards

Cross-functional partnership - work closely with the Principal Decision Intelligence Engineer on feature requirements, and with software engineering pods on how data flows into the decisioning system

What You'll Need

Sponsorship is not available for this role

Bachelor's degree in computer science or relevant field

10+ years of data engineering experience with at least 1-2 years in a tech lead or senior lead capacity

Deep hands-on experience with Databricks and Delta Lake - you have built and owned production pipelines, not just contributed to them

Strong SQL and Python skills; comfortable with Spark at scale

Experience designing and owning a medallion lakehouse architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold or equivalent)

Proven ability to lead a small team or pod through delivery and manage contractor resources

Strong data quality instincts - you treat bad data as a production incident

Clear communicator - you can explain a pipeline design decision to a data scientist, a product owner, and a compliance officer

Comfort using AI productivity tools (Claude, Copilot, or similar) to accelerate development and analysis

Strong plus:

Masters degree

Experience with Databricks Delta Live Tables, Unity Catalog, and Feature Store

Familiarity with Kafka-based event pipelines and real-time data ingestion

Background in healthcare, insurance, or other regulated industries with PHI/HIPAA data handling requirements

Experience integrating government or third-party datasets (CMS, CDC, STARS, or similar)

Use your skills to make an impact

Work Style: Remote/Hybrid - Preferably Boston, MA.

Occasional travel to Humana's offices for training or meetings may be required.

Work Hours: Typical business hours are Monday-Friday, 8 hours/day, 5 days/week- some flexibility might be possible, depending on business needs.

Very minimal travel might be required for training, meetings, and/or conferences

Work at Home Requirements

WAH requirements: Must have the ability to provide a high-speed DSL or cable modem for a home office. Associates or contractors who live and work from home in the state of California will be provided with payment for their internet expense.

A minimum standard speed for optimal performance of 25x10 (25mpbs download x 10mpbs upload) is required.

Satellite and Wireless Internet service is NOT allowed for this role.

A dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information

Interview Format

As part of our hiring process, we will be using on-demand technology provided by Hire Vue, a third-party vendor. This technology provides our team of recruiters and hiring managers with an enhanced method for decision-making through on-demand candidate assessments.

If you are selected to move forward from your application prescreen, you will receive correspondence inviting you to participate in an on-demand assessment with pre-determined questions. You should anticipate the assessment to take approximately 10-15 minutes.

Your on-demand assessment will be reviewed, and you will subsequently be informed if you will be moving forward to next round of interviews.

SSN Task via Workday

Should you be extended a formal employment offer you will receive a request to enter your SSN into our Workday system to scan for duplicate profiles.

Work Hours: Typical business hours are Monday-Friday, 8 hours/day, 5 days/week- some flexibility might be possible, depending on business needs.

Very minimal travel might be required for training, meetings, and/or conferences

Work at Home Requirements

WAH requirements: Must have the ability to provide a high-speed DSL or cable modem for a home office. Associates or contractors who live and work from home in the state of California will be provided with payment for their internet expense.

A minimum standard speed for optimal performance of 25x10 (25mpbs download x 10mpbs upload) is required.

Satellite and Wireless Internet service is NOT allowed for this role.

A dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information

Interview Format

As part of our hiring process, we will be using on-demand technology provided by Hire Vue, a third-party vendor. This technology provides our team of recruiters and hiring managers with an enhanced method for decision-making through on-demand candidate assessments.

If you are selected to move forward from your application prescreen, you will receive correspondence inviting you to participate in an on-demand assessment with pre-determined questions. You should anticipate the assessment to take approximately 10-15 minutes.

Your on-demand assessment will be reviewed, and you will subsequently be informed if you will be moving forward to next round of interviews.

SSN Task via Workday

Should you be extended a formal employment offer you will receive a request to enter your SSN into our Workday system to scan for duplicate profiles.

Work at Home Requirements: To ensure Home or Hybrid Home/Office employees’ ability to work effectively, the self-provided internet service of Home or Hybrid Home/Office employees must meet the following criteria: At minimum, a download speed of 25 Mbps and an upload speed of 10 Mbps is required; wireless, wired cable or DSL connection is suggested. In certain roles, the minimum recommended internet speed required by Humana may not be sufficient for business needs. Humana reserves the right to require associates to upgrade their internet service if necessary. Work from a dedicated space lacking ongoing interruptions to protect member PHI / HIPAA information.

Travel: While this is a remote position, occasional travel to Humana's offices for training or meetings may be required.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Pay Range

The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of starting base pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individual pay will vary based on demonstrated job related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc.

$206,600 - $284,300 per year

This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offers competitive benefits that support whole-person well-being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short-term and long-term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

About Us

About Humana: Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is a leading U.S. healthcare company. Through our Humana insurance services and our CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare and Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. Learn more about what we offer at Humana.com and at CenterWell.com.