Data Engineer

• With a high level of autonomy, the Data Engineer designs and deploys large-scale data frames to support analytics and evaluation for a wide range of research, operational, and evaluation projects supporting the healing of critically ill patients, their loved ones, and the clinicians and institutions caring for them. This involves data management and integration of enterprise applications, research and other data sources in a collaborative multidisciplinary team.

The responsibilities listed below are typical examples of the work performed by this position. Not all duties assigned to this position are included, nor is it expected that everyone in this position will be assigned every job responsibility.

Design, Development & Deployment of Data

• Design and implement standard operating procedures that allow clinicians, organizational leaders, and scientists to analyze up-to-date data on individuals, units, and system-wide processes.
• Write and maintain code to extract individual and organizational data derived from a multi-hospital electronic health record and integrate it with other sources of data including environmental, governmental, and credit report data.
• Investigate data sources to understand all aspects of data generation and updating, including data structures and sources, normal data values, and reasons for anomalies. Maintain documentation of data extraction processes to ensure standardization and retention of core meaning of data.
• Understand requirements for data, information, reporting, and analytic needs to ensure alignment, maximize efficiency, and minimize duplicative effort with a number of overlapping projects and teams.
• Develop, manage, and ensure ongoing implementation of standards for the Center of Excellence data model and data flows. Partner in the development, management, establishment, and enforcement of technical standards both within the Critical Illness Center of Excellence and in collaboration across multiple other Precision Medicine programs.
• Collaborate with mentors and learners to design and support the implementation of projects.
• Develop detailed tasks and project plans by analyzing project scope and milestones for highly complex projects in order to deliver products in a timely fashion.
• Identify areas for data quality improvement by participating in root cause analysis. Make recommendations to prevent and remediate data quality issues through the appropriate choice of architectures and practices.
• Assist with troubleshooting and tuning of diverse projects as needed.

Regulatory & Best Practice Compliance

• Deeply understand, educate other team members about, and ensure compliance with relevant human subjects and privacy regulations and best practices, emanating from both the federal level and Johns Hopkins, including the Institutional Review Board and Data Trust.
• Codify team knowledge and practices into Standard Operating Procedures that can be shared to ensure reproducible science both across Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine programs and throughout the world.
• Negotiate effective coordination with other teams within and external to Johns Hopkins

Implementation & Maintenance

• Write elegant and transparent code to implement data flows and locked data sets to support specific and ongoing analyses.
• Share code and support others sharing code in developing a fundamentally open and reproducible approach within the Center of Excellence and across Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine.
• Monitor changes and resolve highly complex problems requiring the high level of technical expertise by responding as problems arise. Accomplish this by reviewing all processing and output of the newly implemented solution, and by proactively ensuring the solution works successfully in order to satisfy the team’s requirements and to provide a smooth transition to the new solution.

• Recommend and advocate for data policies, governance structures and control frameworks for the ongoing management of data to ensure interpretation stability, convergence, synchronization, accuracy, completeness and reliability, both within the Center of Excellence and across Johns Hopkins Precision Medicine programs.

Data & Statistical Analysis

• Partner with investigators to advise on research with primary responsibility for study design, sampling design, sample size, data management plan, data analysis plans, data processing and analysis, data security, and interpretation and presentation of study data.
• Recommend appropriate statistical procedures, design, implement and manage complex research analysis using a variety of statistical procedures including but not limited to classification and regression trees and other classification methods, survival analysis, and longitudinal modeling.
• Prepares analysis plans and writes detailed specifications for analysis files. Interpret analyses and writes statistical sections of study reports, utilize knowledge of statistics, machine learning, and quantitative analysis to conduct research studies and data analyses.
• Prepare, present, and disseminate reports, manuscripts/publications/presentations, and other data materials. May contribute to writing manuscripts /publications. Produce tables and graphs in publication-quality form. Serves as a program reviewer and quality control checkpoint person for analyses (conducted by self or by others).

Strategy / Leadership

• Embrace change, adapt to the unexpected, and focus energies, people, and solutions on practical and positive results.
• Demonstrate strong written and oral communication skills to effectively lead change, and communicate with business, research, and IT staff.
• Manage complex portfolio of multiple projects, with ability to make explicit and collaborative prioritization decisions.
• Routinely interact with a multidisciplinary team including both learners, early, mid-, and senior career-faculty, within and outside of Johns Hopkins.
• As the team grows, help in the recruitment and selection of new data analysts and biostatisticians, develop onboarding processes to nurture their growth and excellence, with Center of Excellence leaders, develop and implement a staged approach supervision, mentorship, and support.
• Develop with other Centers of Excellence guiding principles, standards, and best practices consumed for the Precision Medicine program.
• Collaborate with, and frequently lead, other technical experts, architects and subject matter experts to contribute technology elements with a focus on reliable data flows for evaluation and discovery.
• Track a broad range of emerging technologies in data flows and analysis.

Special Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

• Strong analytical, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills
• Ability to multi-task & support multiple priorities and multiple deliverables
• Strong understanding of data collection practices, data cleaning principles, and statistical methodology
• Excellent understanding of human subjects and data privacy concerns for health or other deeply personal data
• Ability to communicate effectively and work collaboratively with disparate clients from clinicians through social scientists to technical developers
• Understanding of IT concepts, development life cycles and best practices
• Self-starter with the ability to appropriately prioritize and plan complex work for self or a team in a highly decentralized environment with minimal guidance
• Demonstrated strong interest in developing new skills and methods
• Ability to create quality assurance plans based on the analysis of design documents and requirements, create and execute test cases, log and assign defects and keep track of the defect status.