Career Center

A higher degree of healthcare.

All across UW Medicine, our employees collaborate to perform the highest quality work with integrity and compassion and to create a respectful, welcoming environment where every patient, family, student and colleague is valued and honored.

UW Medicine’s IT Services department has an outstanding opportunity for a Software Engineer 3!

UW Medicine’s Information Technology Services (ITS) department is a shared services organization that supports all of UW Medicine.  UW Medicine is comprised of Harborview Medical Center (HMC), UW Medical Center-Montlake (UWMC-Montlake), UW Medical Center-Northwest (UWMC-NW), Valley Medical Center (VMC), UW Neighborhood Clinics (UWNC), UW Physicians (UWP), UW School of Medicine (SOM) and Airlift Northwest (ALNW).  In addition, UW Medicine shares in the ownership and governance of Children’s University Medical Group and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (a partnership between UW Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research and Seattle Children’s).  ITS is responsible for the ongoing support and maintenance of the infrastructure and applications which support all of these institutions, along with the implementation of new services and applications that are used to support and further the UW Medicine mission.

In collaboration with UW Medicine IT Services (‘ITS’) and under the general guidance of the Director of Research IT, the primary focus of the Software Engineer 3 (‘Engineer’) is supporting the development and delivery of informatics services for biomedical and clinical research projects in the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) and partner organizations of the University of Washington, UW Medicine, and beyond

RIT and NACC are seeking an Engineer to participate on the Innovation and Engineering Team within RIT. The goals of this position are to improve mission critical operational support systems and enhance RIT and NACC’s ability to serve researchers. This is an intensive effort with several critical milestones and deliverables.

Areas of responsibility include, but are not limited to:

developing and maintaining formal technical documentation for effective communication and collaboration with other NACC team members, including change tracking and management;

building and maintaining strong, long-lasting stakeholder relationships by developing a solid understanding of NACC software needs, current practices, pain points, and strategic initiatives;

participating in the timely and successful delivery of Research IT software solutions according to stakeholder needs and objectives; and participating in the successful planning, design, implementation and transition to support research in systems and applications that further the mission of patient care, research and teaching.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Design and Develop Advanced Level Software and Data Management Solutions (50%)

Adapt and extend existing and new, advanced level interface systems to support the end-user query capabilities. This includes maintaining existing systems and processes, and developing and configuring new, advanced level interfaces.

Assess preliminary requirements and technical feasiblility for each new enhancement or module being requested.

Develop project task definition, inlcuding estimated turnaround time for build.

Design Web advanced level applications in PHP/Wordpress.

Build advanced level web applications, including API programming calls. 

Develop advanced level applications and micro services using containerization technologies.

Develop server and database administration, including writing queries and stored procedures.

Gather system requirements and design advanced level technical solutions to bridge clinical and translational research data management environments.

Translate business requirements into technical solutions that address organizational, clinical and research systems needs.

Work closely with other team members on systems architecture and data integration. Collaborate with analysts and programmers to support Research IT software plan and implementation strategy.

Design and test data interfaces among clinical systems.  Document source and target system data requirements.  Define database / message correspondence and associated data transformations, using familiarity with health industry standards data protocols (FHIR, HL7) and coded information (UMLS, ICD10, CPT, LOINC, etc.).

Design responsibilities to include participation in data source mapping, data transactional/transformation mapping, and data stream mapping, and optimization.

Advanced Level Consultation and End-User Training (30%)

Perform the role of biomedical informatics consultant to researchers needing clinical data.  This includes intake, problem definition, solution design, execution, and delivery of datasets in a compliant manner.

Collaborate in developing and delivering advanced level training for end users to effectively utilize developing resources.

Evaluate and provide expert advice and configuration support for integrating third party tools with existing systems.

Provide advice and consultations to partners and management regarding development of technologies and interfaces.

Provide architectural expertise analyzing, designing and developing of the enterprise database systems and setting standards for operations, development and security.  Participate in advanced level design and specification of the hardware and storage architectures supporting the database platforms.  Interact with business stakeholders in designing software to support identified business objectives.

Provide routine advanced level technical assistance for problem diagnosis, resolution and ongoing maintenance activities for partners, Infrastructure and Engineers as they relate to the use and access to databases, the content of specific databases, and the relationships among enterprise data stores.

Train end users to effectively utilize assigned computer systems.

Advanced Level Research IT Software Support and Maitenance (10%)

Respond to advanced level technical design issues and questions for any and all matters specific to Research IT software. Responsibilities may include operational, technical and administrative elements that ensure the availability, reliability, security and performance of the servers necessary to support the needs of the researchers.

Regularly communicate with stakeholders and proactively identify any issues that might impact the on time delivery of the project and propose options to keep the project on schedule.

Ensure performance service levels are met by monitoring operations and resolving advanced level performance issues through system tuning activities, performing troubleshooting techniques and taking corrective actions.  Communicate operational support processes to team.

Ensure data integrity and against data losses by implementing operational procedures for scheduled database backups. 

Plan, test and implement advanced level software maintenance fixes and major releases supplied by vendors.  Plan and execute data migrations for major upgrades.  Perform capacity planning and operating system configuration activities.

Participate in the planning, maintenance and implementation of all aspects of database disaster recovery and business resumption planning.

Best Practices and Technology Development (5%)

Keep up-to-date on industry trends and new technology.

Participate in technical user groups and online forums to maintain current knowledge of research software and how they may be effectively used to solve business problems.

Foster the use of modern data integration principles at UW Medicine.

Collaborate with other team members to maintain best practices and create training curriculum.

Work with the Research IT teams to develop and enforce standardized methodology for the development of interface systems and participate in technology reviews and continual improvement of UWM technologies.

Other (5%)

Participate in all aspects of improving the team, including education/training of other team members and contributing to process/communication improvement initiatives.

Work with manager to set professional goals for career development.           

Act as back-up for other team members and functions, as needed.

REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field or equivalent combination of education/experience.

6+ years’ experience must include the following:

6+ years of progressively responsible experience in a healthcare or research IT setting.

Strong experience and the ability to guide other developers in at least 1 of each of the following:

• Object-oriented or web language (e.g., Java, C#, TypeScript)
  
• Database query language (e.g., SQL, SPARQL)
  
• Scripting language (e.g., Python)
  

2+ years of experience working with or have working knowledge of at least 1 of the following:

• Cloud-native deployment and technologies
  
• Container-based micro-service development (using Docker, Podman, and/or Kubernetes)
  
• Machine Learning (ML) or Natural Language Processing (NLP methods
  

6+ years of experience in formal application/software development (source code version control, validation / deployment / maintenance).

Strong experience and the ability to independently guide customers in information technology environments involved in performing database queries, transforming data structures, and data analysis.

Strong experience and the ability to lead small to medium sized projects in front-end web development using React, Angular, or other modern web development libraries and frameworks.

Strong experience and the ability to lead small to medium sized projects in clinical, biomedical, or public health research data management including experience with healthcare data standards (HL7, RxNorm, LOINC, CPT, etc.).

DESIRED

Previous experience in and knowledge of academic healthcare systems and/or operational environments.

Advanced degree (e.g., Master’s, PhD, etc.)

Experience with or knowledge of containerization processes.

Experience with several of the following database platforms:  Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL.

Understanding of Data Architecture, Data Warehousing, Data Mining and Business Intelligence concepts and technologies.

Experience with large academic health care enterprise projects or operations.

Experience administering a clustered, or otherwise highly available environment.

Familiarity with current web programming and development technology.

Knowledge of Microsoft Windows scripting tools, utilities and languages in the context of SQL Server.

Strong knowledge of UNIX and/or Linux operating systems, including programming using Bash and Python.

A background in biomedical informatics.

Understanding of security and privacy issues, particularly Human Subjects research, HIPAA, and 21CFR11.

Working knowledge of machine learning and/or natural language processing.

Working knowledge of data visualization.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

This is an Information Technology deadline-driven work environment.

The individual in this position is expected to work normal daytime hours. The work may be performed in either an office environment or by telecommuting with manager approval; however, significant off-hours and weekends may be needed to resolve problems and respond to emergencies. This individual is expected to be available for emergencies (business continuity/disaster recovery efforts) on a 24x7 basis as needed.

Must have the ability to meet in person as directed by manager.

Because of the physically separated sites for UW Medicine, this position requires the ability to travel to alternative work locations as needed.

Must coordinate projects without direct supervisory authority.

Must work within the constraints of multiple technical environments.

ITS provides services to all UW Medicine organizations – HMC, UWMC-Montlake, UWMC-NW, VMC, UWNC, UWP, SOM, and ALNW.  The individual in this position must learn many organizational structures and cultures and continually foster collaboration.

Ability to communicate effectively in English, both verbally and in writing.

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