Senior Backend Engineer - AI and Integration Platform

Senior Member of Technical Staff - SMTS

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

Role Summary

Join athenahealth as a Senior Member of Technical Staff based in Chennai, India, in a hybrid work environment. This role focuses on designing, developing, and maintaining scalable microservices, platform services, and AI-powered capabilities for the AI Spine team within Integration Platform. The role combines strong backend engineering expertise with advanced knowledge of Generative AI, Large Language Models, cloud-native development, and enterprise platform engineering.

The position emphasizes building reusable AI and integration platform capabilities that support intelligent automation, LLM-powered workflows, retrieval-assisted experiences, operational visibility, and reliable healthcare data exchange across internal and external systems. This role reports to the Senior Manager, Engineering.

Team Summary

Our zone vision is to maximize our network effect through efficient, effective, and experience-driven interoperability, advancing toward value-based care. Our team is dedicated to improving collaboration across the healthcare ecosystem to support value-based care and enhance patient experience. We are building a robust and scalable integration platform that enables bidirectional workflows between athenahealth and external systems for seamless data exchange.

The AI Spine team is responsible for foundational AI capabilities within the Integration Platform. The team focuses on creating secure, scalable, and reusable AI-enabled platform components that help teams build, execute, monitor, and improve intelligent workflows. This includes capabilities involving LLM integrations, prompt-based application behavior, semantic search, retrieval patterns, and AI-assisted automation. Through this work, the team helps strengthen interoperability, engineering efficiency, and athenahealth's broader platform strategy.

Essential Job Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain scalable microservices, backend platform services, and AI-powered applications using Java, Spring Boot, and modern engineering practices.
• Design and implement reusable AI capabilities that support intelligent workflows, automation, operational insights, and integration platform use cases.
• Integrate LLM APIs and AI platforms such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, and other leading providers.
• Apply prompt engineering, in-context learning, and retrieval-aware design patterns to deliver effective AI-powered experiences.
• Build services that support reliable healthcare data exchange, AI-assisted workflow execution, and platform observability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, reliable, and maintainable AI and integration platform solutions.
• Participate in code reviews, testing, and continuous integration practices to maintain high software quality.
• Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues related to microservices, AI integrations, APIs, cloud services, and platform behavior.
• Document system designs, APIs, service behavior, prompt patterns, AI integration approaches, and development processes.
• Support deployment, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance of platform components in a cloud-based environment.
• Contribute to platform reliability by monitoring service health, identifying risks, and improving observability and operational performance.

Additional Job Responsibilities

• Assist in evaluating and adopting AI technologies, LLM platforms, and cloud-native tools that strengthen platform capabilities and engineering efficiency.
• Contribute to team knowledge sharing, technical discussions, design reviews, and mentoring activities.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies including sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Support performance tuning and optimization of microservices, AI-powered services, and integration platform components.
• Collaborate with security teams to align AI-enabled platform services with security, privacy, and compliance best practices.
• Help improve development of workflows, automation processes, CI/CD practices, and deployment reliability.
• Engage in cross-team initiatives that improve platform scalability, reliability, maintainability, and responsible AI adoption.
• Contribute to strengthening reusable platform capabilities rather than building one-off or point-to-point solutions.

Expected Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 4 to 6 years of professional experience in software development.
• Proficiency in Java, Spring Boot, and microservices architecture.
• Experience building scalable, distributed systems and backend platform services.
• Engineering expertise and advanced knowledge of Generative AI and Large Language Models.
• Hands-on experience developing AI-powered applications and integrating with LLM APIs such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, or similar AI platforms.
• Hands-on experience with prompt engineering techniques, in-context learning, and basic semantic search or retrieval patterns.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS.
• Working knowledge of Docker and containerized application development.
• Familiarity with software development lifecycle practices and Agile methodologies.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate effectively in a team environment.
• Ability to write maintainable, scalable, secure, and performant code for enterprise applications.

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