Senior Data Engineer - Remote

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The Senior Data Engineer supports the VA Enterprise Data Warehouse by designing, building, and operating secure data pipelines and dimensional data assets that power analytics and reporting. This role involves collaborating with business and technical stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable ETL/ELT solutions and ensuring compliant data delivery across the EDW.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with VA EDW business, analytics, and technical teams to capture data requirements and translate them into technical designs, mapping documents, and implementation artifacts (e.g., requirements, source-to-target mappings, runbooks, and deployment documentation)
• Design and enhance EDW data models (staging, integration, and dimensional layers) to support performance, maintainability, and standardized enterprise reporting
• Apply SDLC best practices across analysis, design, development, testing, release, and post deployment support, including code reviews, documentation, and change management
• Collaborate with data engineers, DBAs, QA, and DevOps to build and support batch and/or near real time pipelines into the VA EDW
• Communicate pipeline status, risks, and dependencies to technical leadership and stakeholders through standups, status updates, and written documentation
• Contribute to sprint planning and delivery estimates; manage work to milestones while maintaining quality, security, and operational readiness
• Implement data quality checks, reconciliations, and audit controls (row counts, thresholds, referential integrity, and source-to-target validations) to ensure trusted EDW data
• Perform ETL/ELT unit testing and end to end validation; support regression testing for downstream reporting impacts and participate in defect triage and resolution
• Build, optimize, and monitor ETL/ELT workflows (e.g., Informatica PowerCenter and SQL-based transformations) to ingest data from heterogeneous VA and partner source systems into the EDW layers
• Provide production support for EDW batch schedules and downstream dependencies, troubleshooting and resolving load failures, data defects, and performance issues within SLAs, documenting root cause and corrective actions
• Develop and tune advanced SQL for Teradata (or equivalent MPP platforms), including complex joins, window functions, and performance optimization using explain plans and indexing/partitioning strategies

Requirements:

• 6+ years of hands on experience building and supporting enterprise data pipelines and integrations (batch and/or streaming) in a data warehouse or analytics environment
• 6+ years of experience developing ETL/ELT solutions using tools such as Informatica PowerCenter (and/or comparable enterprise integration platforms)
• 2+ years of experience with healthcare data and compliance concepts (e.g., claims/encounters, eligibility, provider, HIPAA/privacy), preferably within government or regulated environments
• 2+ years of experience with Teradata (or similar MPP data warehouse platforms), including performance tuning and hands on work with load/ingest utilities and automation
• 2+ years of experience with scripting/programming (eg., Python, Shell) for automation, data processing, and operational tooling
• 2+ years of experience performing data profiling, validation, reconciliation, and defect root-cause analysis
• 2+ years of experience with EDW data modeling (e.g., dimensional modeling, conformed dimensions, slowly changing dimensions) and working across staging/integration/presentation layers
• 2+ years of experience with EDW architecture, database design principles, and ETL/ELT patterns (incremental loads, CDC, idempotency, and error handling)
• 2+ years of experience operating high volume data workloads, including scheduling, monitoring, alerting, and incident/problem management
• Proven excellent problem solving skills, attention to detail, and ability to work independently and collaboratively in a mission critical environment
• Proven solid communication and documentation skills, including the ability to produce technical runbooks and operational support documentation
• Experience with modern data platforms and cloud services (e.g., Azure, AWS, Databricks, Snowflake) and patterns for secure data ingestion and transformation
• Experience using AI/LLM models to support data engineering (e.g., accelerating SQL/ETL development, automating documentation, enabling data quality anomaly detection, or generating data pipeline templates) in a secure and compliant manner
• Experience with healthcare payer or provider data (e.g., Medicaid/Medicare), clinical/encounter data, or other regulated health datasets
• Experience with healthcare EDI transactions and formats (e.g., 834, 837, NCPDP) and/or HL7/FHIR concepts
• Experience implementing data quality frameworks, lineage, and reconciliation controls to support auditability and traceability in regulated data environments
• Exposure to modern data engineering practices (ELT, orchestration, CI/CD, data observability, and automated testing) in addition to traditional EDW ETL
• Knowledge of healthcare privacy and security requirements (HIPAA) and familiarity with working in controlled environments (access controls, audit logging, and least privilege)