Senior Software Engineer (Rust + Python) — Clinical Data Platform
Summary
Senior engineer to own the Rust core data engine of a pre-launch clinical data platform: building parsing, validation, and mapping stages for hospital records used by researchers and cancer registries, plus the Python/SQL pipeline around it. Stack: Rust, Python, PostgreSQL, Terraform, AWS, GitHub Actions.
Compensation: $170k – $210k • 0.1% – 0.25%
We’re building a new clinical data platform from the ground up, and we’re hiring a senior engineer to own its core data engine in Rust.
The engine pulls records from hospital systems, parses and validates them, and maps them into a standard data model that researchers and cancer registries rely on. Correctness matters more than speed here: a wrong value can’t be quietly fixed later. That’s why the engine is in Rust. Around it, the pipeline and data model use Python and SQL, and you’ll work across both.
The platform hasn’t launched yet. You’ll help shape its architecture, not inherit someone else’s.
You don’t need healthcare experience. We’ll teach you the data standards. We’re looking for an excellent engineer who writes careful, well-tested code and can explain their decisions.
Our stack: Rust (core data engine), Python (pipeline and orchestration), PostgreSQL, Terraform, and AWS (ECS/Fargate, RDS, Lambda, S3), with CI/CD through GitHub Actions.
What you’ll do
- Own the Rust data engine: design, build, test and run it in production
- Build the parsing, validation and mapping stages so that bad input is rejected with a clear reason, never silently guessed
- Work across the Python and SQL pipeline around the engine, including schema design on PostgreSQL
- Make the engine safe to run at scale: retries, idempotency (re-running a job never duplicates data) and clear failure handling
- Help set our engineering standards: types, tests, code review (including AI-assisted code) and CI
- Help choose the platform’s architecture while it’s still being designed
Required
- Rust you’ve shipped: in production, in open source, or in a serious project of your own. Tell us what it does and link to it if you can
- 5+ years building backend systems or data pipelines in production
- Solid Python and SQL (PostgreSQL preferred), including schema design
- Strong habits around correctness: typed code, tests that cover failure paths, and code review
- Uses AI coding assistants productively, and verifies their output with types, tests and CI rather than trusting it
Nice to have
- Data pipelines that handled retries, backfills or reprocessing
- Parsers or data-format work (any domain)
- Terraform and AWS (ECS/Fargate, RDS, Lambda, S3)
- Workflow orchestration (Airflow, Step Functions or similar)
- Healthcare data (FHIR, HL7, OMOP): genuinely optional
In your note, please tell us
- Something you built in Rust: what it does, and one design decision you’d defend. A link to the code is welcome but not required.
- A production failure you debugged: what broke, how you found the cause, and what you changed so it couldn’t happen again.
A few specific sentences are worth more than a long letter.
