Lead Data Engineer

Who you are

• Strong experience designing distributed systems, including microservices and event-driven architectures
• Deep understanding of data modeling, storage systems (OLTP and OLAP), and data-processing frameworks
• Experience with streaming and batch processing technologies, such as Kafka, Spark, Flink, or similar tools
• Proficiency in backend development using Python, Java, or Ruby, as well as API design using REST or gRPC
• Experience with workflow orchestration tools, such as Apache Airflow
• Experience working with data warehouses and lakehouse platforms, such as Snowflake, Databricks, or similar technologies
• Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and infrastructure as code
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies, including Docker and Kubernetes
• Experience implementing observability practices, including logging, metrics, and tracing, as well as reliability patterns
• Strong understanding of performance optimization and scalability trade-offs
• Experience working with HCP data (provider identity, targeting, segmentation)
• Experience with patient / DTC data workflows and privacy-aware systems
• Understanding of healthcare data ecosystems (claims, provider, or audience datasets)
• Familiarity with identity graphs and data onboarding patterns
• Experience building reporting or attribution systems tied to business outcomes
• Strong grasp of HIPAA, PHI/PII, and regulated data handling requirements
• Technical standards for lineage, data quality, access control, masking, retention, auditability, observability, and cost
• 8+ years of data engineering experience with increasing technical ownership
• Expert SQL and strong Python, Java; experience with batch and streaming patterns, orchestration, testing, and schema evolution
• Proven track record of building and scaling data-intensive or distributed systems
• Experience working in regulated environments (healthcare strongly preferred)
• Strong system design and architecture skills
• Ability to lead technically while remaining hands-on in implementation
• Strong collaboration skills across engineering, product, and data teams
• Experience with healthcare data providers or identity ecosystems
• Background in AdTech, MarTech, or audience/data platforms
• Experience with privacy-enhancing technologies (tokenization, clean rooms)
• Exposure to ML/AI-driven data products or analytics systems

What the job involves

• Zeta Global is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to build and scale healthcare-focused applications and data systems that power audience intelligence, activation, measurement, and reporting across both HCP and DTC workflows
• This is a hands-on technical leadership role operating at the intersection of distributed systems, data engineering, and healthcare domain constraints
• You will design and deliver systems that integrate identity, audience data, and campaign performance while meeting strict requirements for privacy, compliance, and reliability
• The ideal candidate brings strong system design depth, experience building data-intensive platforms, and the ability to lead through architecture and execution in regulated environments
• Applications supporting HCP and patient / direct-to-consumer (DTC) audience discovery, segmentation, and activation
• Scalable data pipelines for ingestion, normalization, and enrichment of healthcare datasets
• Identity resolution and data linkage services across fragmented data sources
• Reporting, attribution, and measurement systems connecting campaigns to outcomes
• APIs and services enabling downstream activation, analytics, and partner integrations
• Healthcare Cloud and data-mapping architecture across claims/Rx, NPI/HCP, patient, media-exposure, brand, and connector datasets
• Healthcare-specific semantic cubes, governed views, data contracts, and domain APIs consumed by Vertical Apps; front-end applications should consume stable domain APIs rather than query raw stores or Cube directly
• Identity resolution, match-rate measurement, medical-code mapping, and approved joins under CERT/HIPAA rules
• Foundational data products for NPI onboarding, PLD reporting, script reporting, HCP/Patient intelligence, journeys, and Next Best Action
• Define and maintain the healthcare data architecture, interface contracts, ADRs, schemas, and staged delivery plan
• Lead ingestion and transformation patterns across Snowflake, Athena/S3, MySQL, and approved healthcare stores without duplicating shared platform capabilities
• Partner with Data Cloud on source certification, partner-feed contracts, identity validation, raw-zone ownership, and data availability SLAs
• Design healthcare base/vertical models and published/governed views, with row/member-level controls, account scoping, masking, and backward-compatible versioning
• Set SLOs and operational readiness criteria; ensure dashboards, alerts, runbooks, rollback paths, and incident ownership are in place before release
• Lead design and code reviews, mentor the Senior Data Engineer, and coordinate dependencies across the pod
• Support compliance evidence, annual audits, US data-residency controls, and stoplight decisions: Start, Stop, or Requires CERT
• Apply privacy-by-design principles across all systems handling PHI/PII
• Partner with Product and Data teams to translate healthcare requirements into scalable architectures
• Drive engineering best practices across testing, CI/CD, code quality, and operational excellence