What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Healthcare Data Engineer position at Milliman?
Milliman's Seattle Health Practice is looking for an experienced data professional to join our VRDC analytics team. In this role, you will develop and maintain data pipelines that process healthcare claims and enrollment data; implement measure logic and business rules from CMS and industry specifications; and contribute to the ongoing improvement of our analytic codebases and data products.
About Our Practice
Milliman’s Seattle Health Practice partners with a broad spectrum of organizations, including insurance companies, health plans, government agencies, healthcare providers, reinsurers, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), health technology firms, and employers. Our team includes over 180 actuarial professionals, supported by expert consultants, IT specialists, and dedicated operations staff.
Join Milliman and collaborate with some of the most accomplished professionals in the health industry. Our mentor program ensures you have a dedicated colleague to guide your career growth, providing the support and resources you need to thrive. For motivated candidates, this is an exceptional opportunity to advance professionally while making a meaningful impact in healthcare.
About The Role And Team
A significant portion of the work involves Medicare data accessed through the CMS CCW Virtual Research Data Center (VRDC), a secure research environment where individual-level data must be processed in place and can only be exported after aggregation, cell suppression, and CMS review. You will also work outside the VRDC - post-processing exported results, integrating client data and other non-VRDC sources, and developing tools and analytics in standard development environments. Code is maintained outside the VRDC using standard version control practices.
The position reports to a senior manager who leads technical direction for the team.
The VRDC is a secure virtual desktop environment operated by CMS. All code is managed outside of the VRDC but some individual-level data sources may only be accessed and processed within the VRDC environment. There is no internet access within the environment, data cannot be exported at the individual level, and all outputs are subject to cell suppression rules. Success in this role requires comfort working within these constraints and the resourcefulness to solve problems using available documentation, data dictionaries, and direct inspection of the data.
Our codebases span multiple languages and platforms and are actively evolving. We value team members who bring informed perspectives on how code should be organized and maintained, while recognizing that pragmatic tradeoffs are part of working in a production analytics environment.
You Will Have The Opportunity To
Required Qualifications
What We’re Looking For
Location
This position is based out of the Milliman office in Seattle, WA. It is preferred that this employee work in-office, but remote candidates anywhere in the US will be considered. The expected application deadline for this job is July 21, 2026.
Compensation
The overall salary range for this role is $85,100 - $161,575. For candidates residing in:
Benefits
We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support employees’ health, financial security, and well-being. Benefits include:
Independent for over 75 years, Milliman delivers market-leading services and solutions to clients worldwide. Today, we are helping companies take on some of the world’s most critical and complex issues, including retirement funding and healthcare financing, risk management and regulatory compliance, data analytics and business transformation.
Milliman invests in skills training and career development and gives all employees access to a variety of learning and mentoring opportunities. Our growing number of Milliman Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) are employee-led communities that influence policy decisions, develop future leaders, and amplify the voices of their constituents. We encourage our employees to give back to their varied professions, including leadership in professional organizations. Please visit our web site (https://www.milliman.com/en/social-impact) to learn more about Milliman’s commitments to our people, inclusion, and sustainability.
Through a team of professionals ranging from actuaries to clinicians, technology specialists to plan administrators, we offer unparalleled expertise in employee benefits, investment consulting, healthcare, life insurance and financial services, and property and casualty insurance.
Equal Opportunity
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.
About Our Practice
Milliman’s Seattle Health Practice partners with a broad spectrum of organizations, including insurance companies, health plans, government agencies, healthcare providers, reinsurers, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), health technology firms, and employers. Our team includes over 180 actuarial professionals, supported by expert consultants, IT specialists, and dedicated operations staff.
Join Milliman and collaborate with some of the most accomplished professionals in the health industry. Our mentor program ensures you have a dedicated colleague to guide your career growth, providing the support and resources you need to thrive. For motivated candidates, this is an exceptional opportunity to advance professionally while making a meaningful impact in healthcare.
About The Role And Team
A significant portion of the work involves Medicare data accessed through the CMS CCW Virtual Research Data Center (VRDC), a secure research environment where individual-level data must be processed in place and can only be exported after aggregation, cell suppression, and CMS review. You will also work outside the VRDC - post-processing exported results, integrating client data and other non-VRDC sources, and developing tools and analytics in standard development environments. Code is maintained outside the VRDC using standard version control practices.
The position reports to a senior manager who leads technical direction for the team.
The VRDC is a secure virtual desktop environment operated by CMS. All code is managed outside of the VRDC but some individual-level data sources may only be accessed and processed within the VRDC environment. There is no internet access within the environment, data cannot be exported at the individual level, and all outputs are subject to cell suppression rules. Success in this role requires comfort working within these constraints and the resourcefulness to solve problems using available documentation, data dictionaries, and direct inspection of the data.
Our codebases span multiple languages and platforms and are actively evolving. We value team members who bring informed perspectives on how code should be organized and maintained, while recognizing that pragmatic tradeoffs are part of working in a production analytics environment.
You Will Have The Opportunity To
- Develop and maintain data pipelines that process healthcare claims, enrollment, and related administrative data
- Own components of data pipelines end-to-end, from raw data processing through final analytic outputs
- Translate technical specifications and business rules into well-structured, maintainable code
- Work with large-scale healthcare datasets (tens to hundreds of millions of rows) within the VRDC's secure computing environment
- Perform data validation, quality checks, and reconciliation to ensure analytic accuracy
- Identify opportunities to improve code quality, reduce duplication, and strengthen testing, validation, and documentation
- Ensure reproducibility and traceability of results across data refreshes and measurement years
- Communicate technical findings, methodology, and data issues clearly to actuarial and consulting staff
- Manage concurrent workstreams across multiple measurement years and data refresh cycles
Required Qualifications
What We’re Looking For
- 5 years of professional experience in data engineering, analytics, or a quantitative analyst role with substantial hands-on coding
- Healthcare data experience — Medicare/Medicaid/commercial claims, enrollment files, pharmacy data, or similar
- Strong SQL proficiency — complex joins, window functions, conditional aggregation, and careful handling of NULLs and edge cases
- Programming experience in Python, SAS, or both; willingness to work across languages as needed
- Experience processing large datasets and an understanding of performance considerations at scale
- Experience implementing business logic from technical specifications
- Familiarity with data modeling and structuring large analytical datasets for reuse
- Demonstrated ability to learn complex domains and business rules quickly
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- A genuine interest in code quality — you think about naming, structure, validation, and maintainability
- Familiarity with healthcare quality measures, such as HEDIS, PQA and CAHPS
- Experience with Databricks, PySpark, or distributed data processing frameworks
- Git-based version control and collaborative development workflows
- Experience working within the CMS CCW/VRDC or comparable restricted research data environments
- Experience with agentic AI coding tools such as Cursor, Copilot, Codex, or Claude Code
- Background in healthcare consulting or health plan analytics
Location
This position is based out of the Milliman office in Seattle, WA. It is preferred that this employee work in-office, but remote candidates anywhere in the US will be considered. The expected application deadline for this job is July 21, 2026.
Compensation
The overall salary range for this role is $85,100 - $161,575. For candidates residing in:
- Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York City, Newark, San Jose, San Francisco, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, or the District of Columbia the salary range is $97,865 - $161,575.
- All other locations the salary range is $85,100 - $140,500.
Benefits
We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support employees’ health, financial security, and well-being. Benefits include:
- Medical, Dental and Vision – Coverage for employees, dependents, and domestic partners.
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP) – Confidential support for personal and work-related challenges.
- 401(k) Plan – Includes a company matching program and profit-sharing contributions.
- Discretionary Bonus Program – Recognizing employee contributions.
- Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) – Pre-tax savings for dependent care, transportation, and eligible medical expenses.
- Paid Time Off (PTO) – Begins accruing on the first day of work. Full-time employees accrue 15 days per year, and employees working less than full-time accrue PTO on a prorated basis.
- Holidays – A minimum of 10 paid holidays per year.
- Family Building Benefits – Includes adoption and fertility assistance.
- Paid Parental Leave – Up to 12 weeks of paid leave for employees who meet eligibility criteria.
- Life Insurance & AD&D – 100% of premiums covered by Milliman.
- Short-Term and Long-Term Disability – Fully paid by Milliman.
Independent for over 75 years, Milliman delivers market-leading services and solutions to clients worldwide. Today, we are helping companies take on some of the world’s most critical and complex issues, including retirement funding and healthcare financing, risk management and regulatory compliance, data analytics and business transformation.
Milliman invests in skills training and career development and gives all employees access to a variety of learning and mentoring opportunities. Our growing number of Milliman Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) are employee-led communities that influence policy decisions, develop future leaders, and amplify the voices of their constituents. We encourage our employees to give back to their varied professions, including leadership in professional organizations. Please visit our web site (https://www.milliman.com/en/social-impact) to learn more about Milliman’s commitments to our people, inclusion, and sustainability.
Through a team of professionals ranging from actuaries to clinicians, technology specialists to plan administrators, we offer unparalleled expertise in employee benefits, investment consulting, healthcare, life insurance and financial services, and property and casualty insurance.
Equal Opportunity
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.
Salary : $85,100 - $140,500