Director, Data Platform Engineering

You + Helix

Helix is a place where innovators and doers gather in order to drive significant progress in population genomics. We have come together to work at the intersection of clinical care, research, and genomics.  

If you’re excited by the idea of making a meaningful impact and joining a team where we pride ourselves on driving innovation through fostering an environment with an emphasis on empowering one another to grow, Helix might be the place for you!

Helix + The World

Helix is the leading population genomics and viral surveillance company. Helix enables health systems, public health organizations and life science companies to accelerate the integration of genomic data into patient care and public health decision making.

We are continuing to scale our world-class team to support our dedication to empowering every person to improve their life through DNA. 

Helix + Transparency

At Helix, we value transparency. You will find the expected compensation, interview process, what to anticipate during onboarding, and your first 90 days listed in the job description for all Helix roles.

What is special about this role?

You will lead a nascent team of data engineers to build and operate Helix’s Data Platform. Enable data accessibility across Helix’s partner ecosystem and empower services that surface key insights from large, complex healthcare datasets. This is an opportunity to apply your Data Engineering leadership pedigree toward a high-impact, life-saving mission.

As the Director of Data Platform Engineering, you will:

• Lead Helix’s Data Platform Team in developing pipelines, warehousing, data models, tooling, and infrastructure to enable applications for clinico-genomic and public health data.
• Partner with Product Management and Engineering managers to ensure consistent execution against quarterly and annual product roadmaps.
• Build a strong team culture of data quality and regulatory compliance, to protect and preserve data integrity and privacy throughout the lifecycle.
• Enable and drive adoption of data platform tooling, infrastructure, and process across Engineering and Science.
• Spearhead long-term technology vision for the Data Platform team at Helix, and define and execute plans to steer towards that vision.
• Define and manage KPIs for the Data Engineering team.
• Collaborate with peer leaders across Engineering, Product Management, Security, Privacy, and Science to advance Helix’s platforms, people, and culture.
• Support Data Engineers and Managers in career development through coaching and feedback to develop future engineering leaders.
• Mentor teammates to reinforce a culture of learning and teaching.
• Partner with Recruiting in growing a high-performing Data Engineering team.
• Apply strong domain understanding of genomics, infectious disease, and healthcare data.

About you:

• 10+ years experience in Data Engineering and 5+ years leadership experience at a senior manager or director level
• Proven track record building and running cloud data platforms at scale (e.g., on AWS, Azure, GCP), including serverless, queuing, container technologies, and infrastructure-as-code paradigms
• Proficiency in working with health and clinical data
• Experience with data blinding and tokenization technologies
• Experience building and operating workflow orchestration frameworks, including open-source tools like Airflow, dbt, or commercial enterprise tools
• Passionate about data engineering and empowering data access across the enterprise
• Demonstrated ability to work closely with high-caliber Security and Privacy functions
• Proven track record recruiting, managing, and retaining engineering talent
• Development experience in Python, Golang, TypeScript, or similar languages
• Empathetic, diligent, data-driven, high-integrity leadership style

Pluses:

• Bachelor/Master of Science in Computer Science
• Experience working with genomics data
• Experience managing developer productivity/tooling teams
• Familiarity with regulated software systems (e.g., HIPAA, FDA)

Expected Interview Process:

1) Recruiter Screen 2) Manager Screen/Tech Screen 3) Onsite  4) Offer 

Expected Pay For This Role:

There are 3 distinct parts to your Helix offer: 1) Base Salary  2) Annual Bonus 3) Equity 

• Expected Helix Base: $178,000 - $283,000
• Expected Helix Discretionary Annual Bonus: 20% of your annual salary
• Equi