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Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Onsite
Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Role Summary: The Principal Frontend Engineer will serve as a senior technical authority shaping the architecture, standards, and long-term direction of frontend engineering across a complex suite of clinical applications. This hybrid role is based in Boston, MA, and blends deep hands-on technical work with broad cross-team influence — setting the engineering vision, driving alignment across multiple product areas, and elevating the quality and consistency of frontend systems at scale.
Team Summary: The Clinicals Front End Rearchitecture Initiative is an engineering-led program with a bold and clear goal: replace a fragmented set of frontend architectures across Clinicals applications with a single, modern, React-based platform that is built to last. Across the current landscape, multiple technologies, patterns, and data access approaches are operating in parallel — creating maintenance overhead, slowing feature delivery, and producing an inconsistent experience for users and developers alike. This initiative is designed to fundamentally resolve that complexity.
A central element of this work is the transition from a home-grown Data Broker to GraphQL as the standard for frontend data access — creating cleaner, more reliable, and more scalable contracts between frontend and backend systems. Node.js is integral to this architecture, supporting build infrastructure, server-side rendering, and lightweight middleware layers that serve the broader frontend ecosystem. The initiative is also establishing a shared component library, testing standards, and architectural conventions that will serve as the foundation for frontend development across Clinicals long into the future.
As a Principal Frontend Engineer, this person will operate at the intersection of deep technical expertise and broad organizational influence. They will help define the architecture that other engineers build within, ensure that engineering decisions are durable and well-reasoned, and bring clarity and direction to some of the most complex technical challenges on the team. The work is consequential — this platform underpins clinical software used by healthcare providers every day — and this role is one of the most impactful technical positions within the initiative.
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Expected Compensation
$164,000 - $280,000The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
About athenahealth
Our vision: In an industry that becomes more complex by the day, we stand for simplicity. We offer IT solutions and expert services that eliminate the daily hurdles preventing healthcare providers from focusing entirely on their patients — powered by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Our company culture: Our talented employees — or athenistas, as we call ourselves — spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our vision. We are a diverse group of dreamers and do-ers with unique knowledge, expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives. We unite as mission-driven problem-solvers with a deep desire to achieve our vision and make our time here count. Our award-winning culture is built around shared values of inclusiveness, accountability, and support.
Our DEI commitment: Our vision of accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all requires addressing the inequities that stand in the way. That's one reason we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our business, from attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce to maintaining an inclusive environment for athenistas, our partners, customers and the communities where we work and serve.
What we can do for you:
Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative workspaces — some offices even welcome dogs.
We also encourage a better work-life balance for athenistas with our flexibility. While we know in-office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full-time. With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.
In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons. We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued.
Learn more about our culture and benefits here: athenahealth.com/careers
