Director of Data Platform

Company :

Job Description : 

JOB SUMMARY

We are seeking a highly skilled and strategic leader with extensive technical expertise in data engineering, distributed systems, and cloud-native architecture, preferably within the healthcare domain. The ideal candidate will possess strong proficiency across modern data platforms, including cloud environments such as GCP (preferred), AWS, and Azure, alongside data processing tools like Spark, Flink, Kafka, and Airflow. Expertise in data storage and querying technologies (BigQuery, Presto/Trino, Iceberg, data lakes, and warehouses), coupled with analytics engineering using dbt and semantic modeling, is essential. A proven ability to design and manage large-scale, secure, and cost-effective data platforms is required. This role is pivotal in defining and owning the long-term data platform and engineering strategy, establishing technical roadmaps, and driving architectural decisions for data ingestion, storage, processing, interoperability, and analytics across the enterprise.

This position also demands significant healthcare industry knowledge, including strong experience with healthcare data, a deep understanding of standards like FHIR, HL7, and related APIs, hands-on experience managing PHI, and building HIPAA-compliant platforms. Familiarity with clinical, claims, and operational healthcare data and their analytical use cases is critical.

The ideal candidate will possess exceptional communication and influence skills, with the proven ability to bridge the gap between highly technical concepts and business stakeholders. They must be comfortable and effective in presenting complex technical information to both executive leadership and non-technical audiences, fostering clear understanding and alignment across the organization.

Finally, the successful candidate will possess strong leadership and strategic capabilities, evidenced by success in leading and scaling high-performing data platform engineering teams in complex enterprise environments. They will be responsible for defining technical vision, setting clear goals, driving execution, influencing cross-functional stakeholders, and fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, and collaboration. Key responsibilities include leading the design, development, and operation of scalable, reliable, and secure data pipelines (ETL/ELT) and platforms, ensuring high availability and performance, and guiding the adoption of modern data engineering practices such as Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, DataOps, and platform self-service. The incumbent will also establish and enforce data quality standards, metadata management, lineage, and operational excellence, ensuring compliance with healthcare regulatory requirements (HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2) and partnering with governance and security teams to protect sensitive data. Collaboration with data science, analytics, product, clinical, and IT teams is essential to deliver trusted and actionable data solutions and to act as a technical advisor to senior leadership, ensuring the availability, performance, and stability of data processes critical for Highmark Health's internal and external stakeholders.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Perform management responsibilities to include, but are not limited to: involved in hiring and termination decisions, coaching and development, rewards and recognition, performance management and staff productivity.  Plan, organize, staff, direct and control the day-to-day operations of the department; develop and implement policies and programs as necessary; may have budgetary responsibility and authority.
• Monitor, maintain, and support the operational and analytic data platforms and technology, working closely with IT partners to ensure the group is leveraging the latest tools and technology.  Oversee an efficient and effective quality control process that tests and reviews all code and processes to ensure accuracy.   Create an overall production and continuous improvement discipline that not only delivers on quality, but continuously lowers our cost to deliver.
• Support data and analytic end-users and stakeholder needs for appropriate data access, awareness, understanding, and troubleshooting to ensure successful information delivery.
• Reliably deliver all assets that exist within the production environment (e.g., data sources, curated datasets, APIs, data feeds, analytic & business intelligence tools) on a timely and accurate basis such that end-users can be more efficient and effective in their job.
• Act as the liaison to the Organization's broader data governance processes, data engineering teams, and other key information technology partners. Act as a critical link to IT and our external plan partners who are leveraging our analytical tools.
• Other duties as assigned or requested.

EDUCATION

Required

• Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Computer and Information Science, Computer Engineering, Health Informatics or related field

Substitutions

• 6 years of relevant work experience in lieu of a bachelor’s degree
   

Preferred

• Master's Degree in Information Technology, Computer and Information Science, Computer Engineering or related field

EXPERIENCE

Required

• 7 years in Data Analytics

To Include:

• 5 years in a management or leadership role

Preferred

• 5 years in the Healthcare Industry
• 5 years in Information Systems

LICENSES AND CERTIFICATIONS

Required

• None

Preferred

• None

SKILLS

• Healthcare Information Systems
• Health Information Management
• Talent Management
• IT Operations

Language (Other than English)

None 

Travel Required

0%  - 25%

PHYSICAL, MENTAL DEMANDS and WORKING CONDITIONS

Position type

Office-Based

Teaches / trains others regularly

Frequently

Travel regularly from the office to various work sites or from site-to-site

Rarely

Works primarily out-of-the office selling products/services (sales employees)

Never

Physical work site required 

Yes

Lifting: up to 10 pounds

Constantly

Lifting: 10 to 25 pounds

Occasionally

Lifting: 25 to 50 pounds

Rarely

Disclaimer: The job description has been designed to indicate the general nature and essential duties and responsibilities of work performed by employees within this job title. It may not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees to do this job.

Compliance Requirement: This job adheres to the ethical and legal standards and behavioral expectations as set forth in the code of business conduct and company policies.

As a component of job responsibilities, employees may have access to covered information, cardholder data, or other confidential customer information that must be protected at all times.  In connection with this, all employees must comply with both the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) as described in the Notice of Privacy Practices and Privacy Policies and Procedures as well as all data security guidelines established within the Company’s Handbook of Privacy Policies and Practices and Information Security Policy. 

Furthermore, it is every employee’s responsibility to comply with the company’s Code of Business Conduct. This includes but is not limited to adherence to applicable federal and state laws, rules, and regulations as well as company policies and training requirements.

Highmark Health and its affiliates prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals based on their status as protected veterans or individuals with disabilities and prohibit discrimination against all individuals based on any category protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

We endeavor to make this site accessible to any and all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process, please contact the email below.

For accommodation requests, please contact HR Services Online at HRServices@highmarkhealth.org

California Consumer Privacy Act Employees, Contractors, and Applicants Notice