What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Software Engineer - API Solutions position at athenahealth?
Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
athenahealth is building next generation platform capabilities that enable developers, partners, and customers to safely extend the athena ecosystem. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build and scale API Solutions within the Data and Ecosystem Platform organization, including offerings such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) for AI-driven workflows and agentic experiences.
In this role, you will design and operate scalable, resilient API infrastructure that provides secure access to athena’s clinical, administrative, financial, and operational data. You will help ensure these systems meet healthcare-grade standards for privacy, reliability, auditability, and trust.
Position Summary
We are looking for an experienced Senior Software Engineer with strong expertise in distributed systems, API architecture, and modern backend platforms. The ideal candidate is hands-on, quality-focused, and pragmatic in solving complex technical problems.
This role also requires strong proficiency with AI-assisted engineering tools, including sound judgment on when to use AI and when to rely on manual engineering. Experience with spec-driven development is highly valued
Key Responsibilities
Technical Execution
$119,000 - $203,000
The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
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
athenahealth is building next generation platform capabilities that enable developers, partners, and customers to safely extend the athena ecosystem. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build and scale API Solutions within the Data and Ecosystem Platform organization, including offerings such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) for AI-driven workflows and agentic experiences.
In this role, you will design and operate scalable, resilient API infrastructure that provides secure access to athena’s clinical, administrative, financial, and operational data. You will help ensure these systems meet healthcare-grade standards for privacy, reliability, auditability, and trust.
Position Summary
We are looking for an experienced Senior Software Engineer with strong expertise in distributed systems, API architecture, and modern backend platforms. The ideal candidate is hands-on, quality-focused, and pragmatic in solving complex technical problems.
This role also requires strong proficiency with AI-assisted engineering tools, including sound judgment on when to use AI and when to rely on manual engineering. Experience with spec-driven development is highly valued
Key Responsibilities
Technical Execution
- Design, build, and operate scalable API services for athena’s FHIR and proprietary APIs.
- Implement core API capabilities, including schema design, session/state management, and event-driven patterns.
- Build secure access controls, including authentication, authorization, and data minimization.
- Write, test, deploy, and support production code with timely issue resolution.
- Follow Definition of Done standards, including testing, peer review, documentation, and regression prevention.
- Implement observability and operational controls, including logging, metrics, alerting, audit trails, and tracing.
- Improve service reliability, scalability, security, and maintainability.
- Use AI-powered development tools to speed up implementation, debugging, refactoring, and multi-file code generation.
- Apply AI effectively in day-to-day engineering while maintaining code quality, security, and correctness.
- Demonstrate strong judgment on when AI is appropriate and when manual engineering is the better approach.
- Practice spec-driven development by translating requirements into clear technical specs, acceptance criteria, and implementation plans.
- Own features and services from design through production support.
- Participate actively in Agile ceremonies and continuous improvement.
- Perform code reviews and mentor junior engineers.
- Manage cross-team dependencies to support predictable delivery.
- Partner with Product, Architecture, Security, Legal, Compliance, and Engineering teams to align technical execution with business and regulatory needs.
- Communicate technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Work with internal product teams to pilot and scale API integrations in real athena workflows.
- 5 years of software engineering experience in distributed systems and scalable backend services.
- Strong proficiency in Java; experience with TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, or similar languages.
- Experience building APIs/microservices in public cloud environments (AWS preferred).
- Strong understanding of HTTP, REST, API design, and API gateway patterns.
- Knowledge of OAuth 2.0, JWT, API tokens, and authorization models (RBAC/ABAC).
- Experience with CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, and production operations.
- Proven ability to use AI development tools to improve engineering productivity.
- Experience with spec-driven development.
- Bachelor’s/master's degree in computer science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience with FHIR and healthcare interoperability standards.
- Familiarity with AI/ML platforms, agent frameworks, or MCP-style integrations.
- Experience with observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK.
- Learns quickly and adapts to evolving technologies and requirements.
- Builds performant, secure, maintainable systems with strong privacy awareness.
- Makes sound technical decisions and drives execution in fast-paced environments.
- Collaborates effectively across diverse teams and stakeholder groups.
- Demonstrates strong analytical and systems-thinking skills around scale, latency, and failure modes.
$119,000 - $203,000
The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
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
Salary : $119,000 - $203,000