Principal DevOps / Data Engineer

LifeCare Advocates • Newton, MA

2d • $175,000 - $195,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Alder is building an intelligence-first operating system for eldercare on AWS, with a data lakehouse at its core. The Principal DevOps & Data Engineer owns both the platform and the data infrastructure: the multi-account AWS environment, Kubernetes, CI/CD, observability, and security controls, as well as the lakehouse and pipelines that turn events and legacy-system feeds into trusted, analytics-ready data. The role works alongside data and application engineers to make the platform reliable, compliant, and cost-effective while establishing the data layer as a foundation for intelligence features.

The position is based in a hybrid, small-team environment in Greater Boston. The listed annual pay range is $175,000–$195,000; actual compensation may vary based on education, experience, and other qualifications.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of experience across DevOps/platform engineering and data engineering, with hands-on depth in both.
• Strong AWS experience, including multi-account organizations, IAM, networking, EKS or equivalent Kubernetes, S3, and Athena/Glue or similar.
• Experience with infrastructure as code such as Terraform, CDK, or CloudFormation, and CI/CD pipeline design; GitLab CI is preferred.
• Production Kubernetes operations experience, including service mesh, autoscaling, secrets, and observability tools such as Prometheus/Grafana or OpenTelemetry.
• Data engineering fundamentals, including SQL, data modeling, and batch and streaming pipelines.
• Proficiency in Python and shell scripting, and comfort reading Java services.
• A security and compliance mindset, with experience operating systems that handle regulated or sensitive data.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills and ability to work in a hybrid, small-team environment in Greater Boston.

Nice To Haves

• HIPAA experience or experience in healthcare, eldercare, or another regulated industry.
• Experience with PostgreSQL change data capture, event sourcing, or Kafka-style streaming.
• Experience with Istio, Valkey/Redis, and AWS Cognito.
• Familiarity with BI tools such as QuickSight, Metabase, or Looker, and analytics for CRM and telephony data.
• Experience supporting ML or LLM workloads and data pipelines for AI features.
• Prior startup or early-stage team experience.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the AWS multi-account environment, including Dev, Preprod, Prod, Internal Tools, Management, and Data & Analytics accounts, IAM Identity Center, and HIPAA-aligned guardrails.
• Operate the Kubernetes platform using EKS and Istio, and manage GitLab CI/CD pipelines, deployments, environments, secrets, rollbacks, and developer tooling.
• Define infrastructure as code with Terraform or CDK so that environments are reproducible and auditable.
• Build observability, alerting, and incident-response practices, and drive reliability, cost, and security improvements across services.
• Operate the S3 data lakehouse with medallion layers, dbt transformations, and Athena, including ingestion from PostgreSQL event streams and legacy systems.
• Build and schedule reliable, tested data pipelines with data contracts, lineage, and quality checks, supporting BI and analytics consumers.
• Partner with application engineers on event-sourced data models and with the data engineer on warehouse models and reporting.
• Implement PHI/PII handling in data and platform layers, including encryption, access control, de-identification, retention, and audit logging.
• Document runbooks and standards, and mentor the team in DevOps and data engineering practices.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation.
• Flexible work schedules and hybrid work opportunities.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Professional development support and continuing education reimbursement.
• A supportive, mission-driven work environment and a collaborative, inclusive culture focused on employee well-being and growth.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed