Lead Data Engineer

Frontera is reimagining how children with autism and other behavioral health needs get the care they deserve. We bring together world-class clinicians, technologists, and autism specialists to build cutting-edge AI tools that help care teams work smarter and spend more time with the children and families who need them most.

Our platform is HIPAA-compliant and designed for the real-world needs of behavioral health teams - from psychologists to ABA therapists. By combining evidence-based care with powerful technology, we’re expanding access to high-quality services for families everywhere.

Our Mission

Frontera exists to close the care gap: every child, no matter where they live, should be able to access effective behavioral healthcare.

We are building secure, scalable infrastructure that powers clinical insights from a wide variety of data sources—including audio, video, text, and structured forms. As a Lead Data Engineer, you’ll play a critical role in designing the backbone that enables our product, ML, and analytics teams to deliver impact at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Design and evolve the foundational data model, ensuring consistency and alignment across ML, engineering, analytics, and product teams.
• Lead greenfield data initiatives from architecture through implementation, shaping the future of our data stack and practices.
• Ingest and process diverse, unstructured data (e.g., audio, video, clinical notes, PDFs), surfacing clinically meaningful information for downstream ML and analytics workflows.
• Build and maintain data ingestion pipelines connecting third-party tools, internal systems, cameras, microphones, and file-based sources.
• Identify and implement scalable data storage solutions optimized for various use cases—text, media, structured data, logs, etc.
• Build and support partner-facing APIs that expose data securely, ensuring alignment with product use cases and regulatory standards.
• Collaborate deeply with ML, engineering, product, analytics, and clinical teams to scale complex pipelines, support model training & evaluation, and enable data-driven product development.
• Establish and monitor system observability—including health checks, dashboards, logging, and alerts for pipelines and APIs.
• Ensure HIPAA compliance and separation of sensitive data, including access controls, encryption, auditability, and secure pipeline design.

Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience as a Data Engineer and Backend Engineer, with strong contributions to pipeline design, data modeling, and backend infrastructure.
• Proven success in leading greenfield data initiatives and building from scratch in fast-paced, startup environments.
• Expertise in ingesting and transforming unstructured data for use in ML models or analytics workflows.
• Strong programming skills in Python, SQL, and experience with frameworks like Airflow, Spark, Kafka, or cloud-native ETL tools.
• Deep understanding of storage solutions across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data types (e.g., PostgreSQL, NoSQL, S3, object stores, search indices).
• Familiarity with API development and experience designing secure, performant data access layers.
• Practical knowledge of HIPAA compliance, secure data handling, RBAC, encryption, and audit requirements.
• Experience with monitoring/observability tools (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch) for data infrastructure.

Bonus If You Have

• Experience in healthcare, clinical research, or other regulated domains (HIPAA, GDPR, etc.).
• Exposure to ML workflows, including data prep for training/inference pipelines.
• Hands-on work with media processing pipelines (e.g., audio transcription, video segmentation, text extraction).
• Background in metadata modeling, data governance, or cross-system schema design.

Why Frontera Health?

• Impactful Mission: Work on challenging and meaningful projects that leverage cutting-edge technologies (AI/ML) to improve pediatric healthcare in underserved communities.
• Growth & Innovation: Be at the forefront of innovation, collaborating with a talented and passionate team in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Professional Development: Join a culture that values mentorship, learning, and continuous improvement.
• Global Collaboration: Engage with team members around the world, broadening your perspective and fostering diverse ideas.
• Competitive Compensation: We offer a competitive salary and benefits package.
• Make a Difference: Help shape the future of behavioral healthcare and positively influence the lives of children and families in rural communities.

We have determined a salary range for this position that takes into account several factors including experience, knowledge, education, skills, and abilities. Please note that the salary information is a general guideline and the exact salary will be determined based on the individual’s qualifications and experience, with consideration given to the factors listed above. All full time employee benefits include a stake in shared success through stock options, health benefits, 401(k) plan, and responsible PTO.

Expected salary range in Denver $170,000—$200,000 USD

Why Join Us

At Frontera, you’ll join a team driven by impact. We’re growing quickly, backed by leading investors, and united by a shared belief that innovation and equity can change lives. If you’re excited to build the future of pediatric healthcare, we’d love to meet you.