Lead Backend Software Engineer

Lead Member of Technical Staff – LMTS

Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Lead Member of Technical Staff

Role Summary:

Build technology that helps athenahealth deliver reliable and scalable healthcare operations at enterprise scale. The Lead Member of Technical Staff will design, develop, and guide implementation of backend services and associated applications that support claims processing, business workflows, and platform capabilities across the Collector domain. This role is based in Chennai, India and follows a hybrid work model. The person in this role will work across engineering and cross-functional partners to deliver secure, maintainable, and cloud-enabled solutions using modern development practices. This position reports to the Manager, Engineering.

Team summary:

The Collector team builds Enterprise Services & Tools using robust technologies including Java, PostgreSQL, ReactJS, and Perl. The team focuses on delivering reliable, secure, and scalable systems that meet healthcare compliance standards. At Collector, the primary responsibility is designing and maintaining a modern claims rules engine and related services that enable providers to process and submit claims effectively to payers, reduce denials, and ensure timely reimbursement.

This work sits at the center of complex revenue cycle operations and requires systems that can handle high transaction volumes, evolving business rules, and integration points across multiple internal platforms and external payer-facing workflows. The team develops services and tools that improve the accuracy, consistency, and efficiency of claims processing while supporting operational flexibility and long-term platform maintainability.

Engineers in this space work on a mix of service development, workflow orchestration, operational tooling, and modernization efforts. The role often involves balancing business priorities, technical tradeoffs, scalability needs, and compliance expectations. As a Lead Member of Technical Staff, this role helps shape implementation approaches, contributes to technical direction within the team, and partners closely with product, engineering, and operational stakeholders to deliver solutions that improve outcomes for providers and internal teams.

Essential Job Responsibilities:

• Design and develop backend applications and distributed services using Java and related technologies to support claims processing and enterprise workflow capabilities. 
• Build scalable and maintainable microservices that integrate with internal systems, business rules engines, and cloud-based platforms. 
• Develop service interfaces and supporting components using JavaScript where applicable for tooling, integration layers, or user-facing technical capabilities. 
• Implement and enhance solutions on AWS with attention to reliability, security, observability, and operational efficiency. 
• Lead technical design discussions and guide implementation decisions by evaluating tradeoffs across performance, maintainability, scalability, and business needs. 
• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and engineers to translate business requirements into practical technical solutions and delivery plans. 
• Review code, design artifacts, and implementation approaches to improve software quality, consistency, and maintainability across the team. 
• Troubleshoot complex production issues, identify root causes, and coordinate durable fixes that strengthen platform stability and service quality. 
• Optimize application behavior, service interactions, and system performance to support high-volume transactional workflows. 
• Integrate AI tools into team workflows where appropriate to improve engineering efficiency, such as evaluating implementation options, accelerating code analysis, summarizing technical context, or improving test design, and guide others in using those tools with sound judgment and validation of outputs.

Additional Job Responsibilities:

• Support release planning, deployment readiness, and post-release validation activities for assigned services and features. 
• Document technical designs, service dependencies, and operational considerations to improve team knowledge sharing and maintainability. 
• Contribute to backlog refinement, technical estimation, and sprint planning activities. 
• Partner with adjacent teams to align on architecture boundaries, service contracts, and shared platform dependencies. 
• Assist in improving CI/CD workflows, development standards, and operational practices across the engineering organization. 
• Mentor team members through technical discussions, reviews, and collaborative problem-solving. 
• Strengthen monitoring, alerting, and operational readiness for services within the Collector ecosystem. 
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual effort, simplify workflows, or modernize components through automation and platform improvements.

Expected Education & Experience:

• 8 to 13 years of software engineering experience in backend development, distributed systems, enterprise platforms, or related technical domains. 
• Hands-on experience with Java in building and maintaining production-grade applications and services. 
• Experience with JavaScript for application development, integration layers, or technical tooling. 
• Experience designing, developing, and supporting microservices architectures in production environments. 
• Working knowledge of AWS services and cloud-based deployment patterns. 
• Experience designing and consuming APIs, integrating across service-based systems, and supporting high-volume transactional workflows. 
• Understanding of software design principles, testing strategies, debugging practices, observability, and version control. 
• Experience leading or guiding technical implementation efforts within Agile or iterative software development environments. 
• Ability to analyze complex technical issues, communicate clearly across stakeholder groups, and contribute practical, maintainable solutions. 
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.

About athenahealth

Our vision: In an industry that becomes more complex by the day, we stand for simplicity. We offer IT solutions and expert services that eliminate the daily hurdles preventing healthcare providers from focusing entirely on their patients — powered by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Our company culture: Our talented  employees — or athenistas, as we call ourselves — spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our vision. We are a diverse group of dreamers and do-ers with unique knowledge, expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives. We unite as mission-driven problem-solvers with a deep desire to achieve our vision and make our time here count. Our award-winning culture is built around shared values of inclusiveness, accountability, and support.

Our DEI commitment: Our vision of accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all requires addressing the inequities that stand in the way. That's one reason we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our business, from attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce to maintaining an inclusive environment for athenistas, our partners, customers and the communities where we work and serve.

What we can do for you:

Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative  workspaces  — some offices even welcome dogs.

We also encourage a better work-life balance for athenistas with our flexibility. While we know in-office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full-time. With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.

In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons. We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued. 

Learn more about our culture and benefits here: athenahealth.com/careers  

https://www.athenahealth.com/careers/equal-opportunity

Experience Level

Senior Level