Principal Software Engineer, Payer Portal

About athenahealth athenahealth strives to cure complexity and simplify the practice of healthcare. Our innovative technology includes electronic health records, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement solutions that help healthcare providers, administrators, and practices eliminate friction for patients while getting paid efficiently. athenahealth partners with practices with purpose-built software backed by expertise to produce the insights needed to drive better clinical and financial outcomes. We’re inspired by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all. Our vibrant and talented employees spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our goals. We continue to expand our workforce with amazing people who bring diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives at every level, and foster an environment where we each feel comfortable bringing their best selves to work. Our dedication to creating an exceptional workplace has been recognized with several prestigious awards. We've been honored as a 2024 Top Workplaces USA, named a Forbes 2024 America's Best Mid-Size employers, and celebrated as one of 2023 Glassdoor Best Large Companies to Work For. Additionally, we've been acknowledged as a 2023 Top Workplace in Austin, one of the 2023 Best Places to Work in Maine and a 2023 Top Workplace in MA by the Boston Globe. These accolades are a testament to our vibrant and diverse team that fuels innovation at athenahealth.

athenahealth

We provide network-enabled services, mobile apps, and data-driven insights to hospitals and medical organizations.

Revenue Cycle ManagementPatient EngagementMedical BillingCare CoordinationPopulation Health ManagementPoint-of-care mobile appsElectronic Health Records (EHR)health information technologyAI-native platformand Value-based care

A

athenahealth.com

5,001-10,000 employees

IT Services and IT Consulting

Boston, Massachusetts

1997

Privately Held

376k LinkedIn followers

Raised $35M

• athenaCollector is a critical part of the athenaOne platform, helping medical provider organizations manage revenue cycle operations with accuracy, scale, and reliability. The product supports essential workflows across claims submission, claims follow-up, payment processing & posting, billing, payer connectivity, and exception handling, all of which contribute to improved financial performance and stronger operational visibility. The team works on a complex environment that includes both a large enterprise monolith and newer platform components, requiring thoughtful technical decisions, careful integration, and a balance between near-term delivery and long-term maintainability. By improving automation and streamlining revenue cycle processes, athenaCollector helps healthcare organizations spend more time focused on patient care and less time managing manual administrative work.
• Lead the design, development, and delivery of high-quality software within an agile, cross-functional team, owning technical decisions and guiding implementation in alignment with architectural standards and business goals.
• Solve complex system challenges across both an existing enterprise monolith and newer platform services in parallel, while driving production readiness through sound practices for testing, reliability, observability, and operational readiness.
• Establish and improve engineering standards across teams, including code review practices and spec-driven and test-driven development approaches.
• Partner with product and engineering stakeholders to surface risks early, clarify tradeoffs, and support timely decision-making.
• Mentor engineers and help grow senior engineers into more independent, higher-impact contributors.
• Integrate AI coding assistants and agentic development tools into everyday workflows, evaluate their fit for the team, and help establish shared norms for effective and responsible use in design, coding, testing, and review.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Support collaboration between product and engineering by creating clarity around scope, dependencies, and delivery risks.
• Contribute to planning, estimation, and prioritization discussions as needed.
• Participate in design reviews, retrospectives, and continuous improvement activities.
• Support hiring, interviewing, and onboarding efforts when needed.
• Share technical knowledge through mentorship, documentation, and team learning sessions.
• Help strengthen delivery practices in Agile environments, including adapting workflows to support AI-assisted engineering.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 12+ years of engineering experience in a product engineering organization, with demonstrated progression into technical leadership.
• Deep backend experience in distributed systems, with a track record of designing and shipping production-grade enterprise software.
• Strong experience with Java and Spring Boot in backend development.
• Proven experience making and defending system-level architectural decisions, not only implementing within an existing design.
• Hands-on production experience with AI coding assistants or agentic development tools such as Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, or Cursor, including experience helping teams adopt shared usage norms.
• Experience defining engineering standards, code review practices, spec-driven development, test-driven development, and testing strategy across multiple teams.
• Experience working with PostgreSQL, Oracle, AWS services, Kubernetes, and Terraform; React experience is strongly preferred.
• Ability to work effectively across a complex enterprise monolith and a newer technology platform in parallel.
• Healthcare domain experience, especially in revenue cycle management (RCM), claims processing, or billing, is a plus.
• Experience improving Agile delivery environments, ideally with exposure to adapting team processes for AI-assisted delivery.

• $164,000 - $280,000
• 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.
• 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