Staff Backend Engineer (RWE) - Distributed Systems & Data Platform
GoPythonJavaScalaAWSKafkaAirflowSparkNYC · Staff · Seed
At H1, we believe access to the best healthcare information is a basic human right. Our mission is to provide a platform that can optimally inform every doctor interaction globally. This promotes health equity and builds needed trust in healthcare systems. To accomplish this our teams harness the power of data and AI-technology to unlock groundbreaking medical insights and convert those insights into action that result in optimal patient outcomes and accelerates an equitable and inclusive drug development lifecycle. Visit h1.co to learn more about us.
Data Engineering is responsible for the development and delivery of our most important asset, our data. Across thousands of data sources globally, the team ensures that only accurate, normalized data flows to our customers, at the speed required to match real-world changes. As we expand the markets we serve and increase the breadth and depth of data we capture, we need senior technical leaders who can drive execution, scalability, and architectural excellence.
WHAT YOU'LL DO AT H1
As a Staff Backend Engineer on the Real World Evidence (RWE) team, you'll be one of the most senior individual contributors and a key technical leader responsible for building the backend systems and platform capabilities that power some of H1's largest healthcare datasets. You'll partner closely with Product, Data Engineering, AI/ML, and downstream engineering teams to turn ambiguous business problems into scalable technical solutions that improve how healthcare data is processed, linked, and delivered.
You will:
- Act as a self-starter who drives execution independently, taking ownership and initiative with minimal day-to-day direction.
- Lead high-impact backend and platform initiatives that support large-scale healthcare data processing and critical customer-facing capabilities.
- Own architectural decisions for backend services and distributed systems, ensuring solutions are scalable, reliable, and aligned with H1's long-term technical vision.
- Design and build highly scalable backend services, APIs, and processing systems capable of supporting hundreds of terabytes of healthcare data.
- Partner closely with Product, Data Engineering, AI/ML, and Engineering leadership to translate ambiguous business needs into technical roadmaps and production-ready solutions.
- Collaborate across engineering teams to reduce technical bottlenecks, improve platform capabilities, and accelerate delivery.
- Represent engineering in cross-functional planning discussions, helping shape technical strategy while influencing without formal authority.
- Mentor engineers through technical leadership, architectural guidance, design reviews, and thoughtful engineering practices. ABOUT YOU You're a Staff-level backend engineer who enjoys solving difficult technical problems at scale. You thrive in environments where requirements aren't always fully defined and enjoy bringing clarity to ambiguity. You naturally think in terms of systems, architecture, and long-term scalability while remaining hands-on enough to build production software. You're excited by the opportunity to work with complex, real-world datasets and are eager to deepen your expertise in large-scale distributed data systems while leveraging your strong backend engineering foundation.
You:
- Have a proven track record of leading complex technical initiatives from concept through production.
- Bring deep experience designing scalable backend platforms, distributed systems, APIs, event-driven architectures, or infrastructure platforms.
- Enjoy solving messy technical problems and making pragmatic architectural tradeoffs.
- Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, helping shape direction across teams.
- Raise the engineering bar through thoughtful design, high-quality code, and strong technical leadership.
- Invest in mentoring teammates and improving engineering practices across the organization. REQUIREMENTS - 8+ years building scalable backend software, distributed systems, or platform infrastructure in production environments.
- Strong experience designing scalable, reliable backend architectures and making technical decisions around system design, performance, and maintainability.
- Strong programming experience in Python or another modern backend language (Java, Go, Scala, C++, etc.) with the ability to quickly become productive in Python.
- Experience building systems that process large volumes of data or high-throughput distributed workloads.
- Experience working in cloud-native environments (AWS preferred) and deploying distributed systems in production.
- Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical initiatives, influence architectural direction, and partner effectively across engineering and product organizations.
- Experience with Spark, Kafka, Hudi, Airflow, or other distributed data technologies is a plus—but we're equally interested in backend engineers with strong distributed systems experience who are excited to deepen their expertise in modern data engineering. COMPENSATION This role pays $170,000 to $190,000 per year, based on experience, in addition to stock options. Anticipated role close date: 8/15/2026
- Act as a self-starter who drives execution independently, taking ownership and initiative with minimal day-to-day direction.
- Lead high-impact backend and platform initiatives that support large-scale healthcare data processing and critical customer-facing capabilities.
- Own architectural decisions for backend services and distributed systems, ensuring solutions are scalable, reliable, and aligned with H1's long-term technical vision.
- Design and build highly scalable backend services, APIs, and processing systems capable of supporting hundreds of terabytes of healthcare data.
- Partner closely with Product, Data Engineering, AI/ML, and Engineering leadership to translate ambiguous business needs into technical roadmaps and production-ready solutions.
- Collaborate across engineering teams to reduce technical bottlenecks, improve platform capabilities, and accelerate delivery.
- Represent engineering in cross-functional planning discussions, helping shape technical strategy while influencing without formal authority.
- Mentor engineers through technical leadership, architectural guidance, design reviews, and thoughtful engineering practices. ABOUT YOU You're a Staff-level backend engineer who enjoys solving difficult technical problems at scale. You thrive in environments where requirements aren't always fully defined and enjoy bringing clarity to ambiguity. You naturally think in terms of systems, architecture, and long-term scalability while remaining hands-on enough to build production software. You're excited by the opportunity to work with complex, real-world datasets and are eager to deepen your expertise in large-scale distributed data systems while leveraging your strong backend engineering foundation.
You:
- Have a proven track record of leading complex technical initiatives from concept through production.
- Bring deep experience designing scalable backend platforms, distributed systems, APIs, event-driven architectures, or infrastructure platforms.
- Enjoy solving messy technical problems and making pragmatic architectural tradeoffs.
- Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, helping shape direction across teams.
- Raise the engineering bar through thoughtful design, high-quality code, and strong technical leadership.
- Invest in mentoring teammates and improving engineering practices across the organization. REQUIREMENTS - 8+ years building scalable backend software, distributed systems, or platform infrastructure in production environments.
- Strong experience designing scalable, reliable backend architectures and making technical decisions around system design, performance, and maintainability.
- Strong programming experience in Python or another modern backend language (Java, Go, Scala, C++, etc.) with the ability to quickly become productive in Python.
- Experience building systems that process large volumes of data or high-throughput distributed workloads.
- Experience working in cloud-native environments (AWS preferred) and deploying distributed systems in production.
- Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical initiatives, influence architectural direction, and partner effectively across engineering and product organizations.
- Experience with Spark, Kafka, Hudi, Airflow, or other distributed data technologies is a plus—but we're equally interested in backend engineers with strong distributed systems experience who are excited to deepen their expertise in modern data engineering. COMPENSATION This role pays $170,000 to $190,000 per year, based on experience, in addition to stock options. Anticipated role close date: 8/15/2026
H1 OFFERS
- Full suite of health insurance options, in addition to generous paid time off
- Pre-planned company-wide wellness holidays
- Retirement options
- Health & charitable donation stipends
- Impactful Business Resource Groups
- Flexible work hours & the opportunity to work from anywhere
- The opportunity to work with leading biotech and life sciences companies in an innovative industry with a mission to improve healthcare around the globe
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