Staff Data Engineer

Trial Library•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Trial Library is seeking a Staff Data Engineer to take ownership of the data pipelines that manage patient data within their AI-native research platform. This role is central to a significant architectural shift towards robust, automated integrations for ingesting complete patient records, moving away from manual data pulls. The data managed will power AI-assisted patient-trial matching, focusing on healthcare data with HIPAA-grade stakes and real-world inputs. The engineering culture emphasizes direct communication, strong ownership, and low-ego collaboration, with a bias for quick decision-making and open feedback. AI is deeply integrated into their product and SDLC, used for coding, testing, measuring, and iterating, viewed as a competitive advantage. The platform is built on AWS (Lambda, Fargate, SQS, RDS, Bedrock) with Pulumi-managed infrastructure, a primarily TypeScript backend, and PostgreSQL/Drizzle for data. They prioritize pragmatic architecture, developer velocity, and systems that evolve rapidly.

Requirements

8 or more years of data engineering experience, with at least a couple of years operating at staff scope or equivalent impact.
Demonstrated high-impact ownership.
Strong pipeline engineering skills: ingestion, transformation, and orchestration of data at meaningful scale, with attention to data quality and reliability.
Deep SQL and PostgreSQL fluency, including schema design and query performance.
Solid Python and comfort working in a codebase with TypeScript.
Deep AWS experience (Lambda, Fargate, SQS, RDS, and the surrounding ecosystem) and the ability to choose the right service for the right job.
Startup experience, building from scratch at an early-stage company and treating ambiguity as an opportunity.
Strong systems thinking, encompassing backend architecture, APIs, databases, and scalability under real-world constraints.
Clear communication and influence skills.
Healthcare alignment with a genuine interest in improving clinical trial access and health equity.
HIPAA experience is a strong plus.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with IaC tooling (Terraform, Pulumi, etc).
Familiarity with clinical or healthcare data standards (EHR/EMR, HL7/FHIR).
Familiarity with API design patterns.
Experience in a regulated industry.

Responsibilities

Own the ingestion and transformation pipelines for patient records, ensuring data is reliable for matching systems and human experts.
Design for reliability in compute-intensive, long-running workflows, utilizing architectures like async pipelines, message queues, and container-based compute.
Own data quality end-to-end, including schema design, validation, transformation logic, and monitoring.
Partner with AI engineers on data foundations for patient-trial matching.
Collaborate with product engineers on data flow into user-dependent workflows.
Monitor production, triage issues quickly, and apply pragmatic judgment in technology choices.
Leverage AI coding tools creatively and effectively to build production systems.
Take autonomous ownership, identifying and resolving systemic issues independently.
Communicate and influence effectively, explaining trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and eligible dependents.
Disability, life, and supplemental insurance options.
Flexible paid time off.
Observed company holidays.
One-time home office stipend.
401(k) program.
Pre-tax HSA and FSA options.
Commuter benefits.
Financial wellness resources.
Access to legal protection plans.
Access to voluntary benefit offerings including pet wellness support.
Domestic partner coverage.
Additional programs that support the diverse needs of team members and their families.