Lead Data Engineer - Finance & Accounting Focus

Position Overview

The Lead Data Engineer – Finance & Accounting focus owns the design, development, and delivery of scalable, cloud-native data services supporting finance treasury and accounting functions, including financial reporting, reconciliation, billing, and operational accounting use cases. This role combines hands-on data engineering, technical leadership, and end-to-end project ownership, with accountability from solution design through production delivery.
The ideal candidate brings strong finance and accounting domain experience, deep expertise in AWS and Snowflake, and a proven ability to architect data platforms that ensure accuracy, traceability, and audit readiness while leading complex initiatives and mentoring engineers.

What You’ll Do:

• Own end-to-end delivery of finance and accounting data service solutions, from requirements and architecture through implementation, testing, deployment, and support

• Design and implement Snowflake-based financial data architectures, including accounting-ready data models and DBT transformation pipelines

• Build and maintain high-reliability data pipelines supporting financial reporting, reconciliations, close processes, and downstream analytics

• Lead cloud data engineering initiatives across the data platform supporting general ledger, revenue, payments, claims, billing, and operational finance workflows

• Serve as technical lead on finance-focused projects, setting engineering standards, making architectural decisions, and ensuring delivery quality and timelines

• Partner closely with Finance, Accounting, FP&A, and Analytics teams to translate business and accounting requirements into scalable data products

• Ensure financial data integrity, auditability, and traceability, including controls, lineage, and reconciliation logic

• Mentor and guide data engineers through code reviews, design reviews, and hands-on technical leadership

• Establish and enforce data quality, observability, and governance practices aligned to financial and regulatory expectations

• Support migration of financial data platforms from on-premises systems to cloud-based solutions

• Drive Agile delivery practices, participating in sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, and release management

• Uphold data privacy, security, and compliance standards relevant to financial and healthcare data

What You’ll Bring to Zelis:

• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, with 2+ years in a technical lead or ownership role

• Demonstrated experience developing data solutions for finance and accounting domains, such as general ledger, revenue, payments, claims, billing, or financial reporting

• Proven experience designing and delivering Snowflake cloud data warehouse solutions

• Strong cloud engineering experience supporting financial data platforms, including data lakes, pipelines, and cloud-native services

• Advanced SQL expertise, including complex joins, performance tuning, and reconciliation logic

• Experience building and managing enterprise financial data warehouses and data lakes

• Hands-on experience migrating financial data systems from on-premises SQL platforms to cloud environments

• Strong understanding of financial data modeling, ETL/ELT patterns, and analytics architecture

• Demonstrated leadership, mentorship, and cross-functional collaboration skills

• Excellent communication skills with both technical teams and finance/accounting stakeholders

• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments and facilitating ceremonies

Preferred Skills:

• 5+ years working with modern ETL/ELT tools (DBT strongly preferred)

• Experience with columnar MPP cloud data warehouses (Snowflake)

• Proficiency in the creation, performance tuning and reverse engineering of complex SQL queries and stored procedures

• Python proficiency for data engineering, automation, and financial data processing a plus

• Experience supporting financial close, reconciliations, audit reporting, and executive financial reporting

• Familiarity with real-time or near-real-time financial data processing

• Working knowledge of Git, CI/CD pipelines, Azure DevOps, Jira, and Confluence

• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cortex AI, Cursor) to improve development velocity and code quality

• Healthcare finance, payments, or regulated financial systems experience

Independence/ Accountability:

• Operates with minimal day-to-day supervision

• Takes full ownership of finance-focused data initiatives and outcomes

• Independently prioritizes work across multiple financial and technical initiatives

• Regularly aligns goals, risks, and delivery status with leadership

• Comfortable working under pressure while supporting time-sensitive financial reporting cycles

Problem Solving:

• Proactively identifies financial data risks, reconciliation gaps, and data quality issues

• Designs and implements scalable, audit-ready solutions

• Demonstrates strong organizational and project management skills

• Maintains exceptional attention to detail with awareness of financial and downstream business impact

Base Salary Range

$127,000.00 - $160,550.00

At Zelis we are committed to providing fair and equitable compensation packages. The base salary range allows us to make an offer that considers multiple individualized factors, including experience, education, qualifications, as well as job-related and industry-related knowledge and skills, etc. Base pay is just one part of our Total Rewards package, which may also include discretionary bonus plans, commissions, or other incentives depending on the role.

Zelis’ full-time associates are eligible for a highly competitive benefits package as well, which demonstrates our commitment to our employees’ health, well-being, and financial protection. The US-based benefits include a 401k plan with employer match, flexible paid time off, holidays, parental leaves, life and disability insurance, and health benefits including medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug coverage.

Equal Employment Opportunity  
Zelis is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. 
 
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications for the role. We believe in the value of diverse perspectives and experiences and are committed to building an inclusive workplace for all. 

Accessibility Support 
We are dedicated to ensuring our application process is accessible to all candidates. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require a reasonable accommodation with any part of the application and/or interview process, please email [email protected]. 

  

Disclaimer 

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified. All personnel may be required to perform duties outside of their normal responsibilities, duties, and skills from time to time.