Senior Software Engineer, Data
About the role
<p>Sidecar Health is redefining health insurance. Our mission is to make excellent healthcare affordable and accessible for everyone. We know that to accomplish this lofty mission, we need driven people who will make things happen.</p>
<p>The passionate people who make up Sidecar Health’s team come from all over, with backgrounds as tech leaders, policy makers, healthcare professionals, and beyond. And they all have one thing in common—the desire to fix a broken system and make it more personalized, affordable, and transparent.</p>
<p>If you want to use your talents to transform healthcare in the United States, come join us!</p>
<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces="true">About the Role</span></strong></p>
<p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">This is a high-impact individual contributor role on our platform team, building large-scale data pipelines and distributed systems that power Sidecar Health's core product. You'll take full ownership of complex, ambiguous problems from architecture through production — designing, shipping, and running the systems you build. If you're a strong senior engineer who thrives on end-to-end ownership and wants your work to matter in healthcare, this is the role for you.<br><br><em>**MUST BE BASED IN CALIFORNIA**</em></p>
<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces="true">What You'll Do&nbsp;</span></strong></p>
<ul>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Design and own high-throughput, distributed data pipelines and platform infrastructure from concept through production</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Decompose large, ambiguous initiatives into structured, executable plans that the team can move on in parallel</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Write production-grade Python — strongly typed, well-structured, and built to last — not scripts or notebooks</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Optimize SQL at scale: query tuning, data modeling, and understanding execution plans</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Architect across boundaries — defining contracts between frontend, backend services, and infrastructure</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Be a technical resource and mentor for junior engineers, and partner directly with leadership on roadmap and technical decisions</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Instrument systems for observability — knowing what to monitor, not just how to read a dashboard</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces="true">What You'll Bring&nbsp;</span></strong></p>
<ul>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">5+ years of professional software engineering experience with full ownership of production systems</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Strong proficiency in Python (mypy, Pydantic, proper abstractions) and SQL at scale</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Deep experience building and operating distributed data pipelines and event-driven architectures</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Hands-on AWS experience: Lambda, SQS, IAM, CloudWatch, and cost-aware design</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Docker as a first-class practice</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Habitual, fluent use of AI tools (Claude, Cursor, etc.) as part of your daily workflow</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Observability experience with Datadog or equivalent</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Familiarity with FastAPI, Django, SQLAlchemy, Celery, or Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CDK) is a strong plus</li>
<li class="whitespace-normal break-words pl-2">Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field</li>
</ul>
<p><span data-preserver-spaces="true"><strong>The Reality<br></strong></span></p>
<p data-start="4003" data-end="4080">This is a startup. We move fast. We prioritize impact over polish. We expect:</p>
<ul>
<li data-start="4084" data-end="4124">Bias for action — ship, learn, iterate</li>
<li data-start="4127" data-end="4172">Ownership — you design it, build it, run it</li>
<li data-start="4175" data-end="4231">Pragmatism — solve real problems, not theoretical ones</li>
<li data-start="4234" data-end="4283">Resilience — ambiguity comes with the territory</li>
</ul>
<p data-start="4285" data-end="4336">Healthcare is complex and broken. The work matters.</p>
<p><span data-preserver-spaces="true"><strong>What You'll Get&nbsp;</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li>Competitive salary, bonus opportunity, and equity package&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li>Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits</li>
<li>A 401k retirement plan</li>
<li>Paid vacation and company holidays</li>
<li>Opportunity to make an impact at a rapidly growing mission-driven company transforming healthcare in the U.S.</li>
</ul><div class="content-conclusion"><p><span class="TextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0" lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0">Sidecar Health is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to building a diverse team. We do not discriminate&nbsp;</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0" lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0">on the basis of</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0" lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW9346378 BCX0"> race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.</span></span></p></div>