Staff Back-End Engineer: Claims Engine

About Helm Health

Helm is a Series A start-up transforming health insurance with "Dynamic Copay" – a new insurance plan that lets members see simple, upfront prices for all medical care before making decisions. Our team is building the infrastructure to power these plans for health insurance payors. With Helm, our clients offer simpler health plans to their members, helping them navigate to higher-value care. 
Our team has specialized in Dynamic Copay solutions since 2020, and Helm is the only independent platform in the market. We have grown rapidly since our launch, working with clients from local health plans to the nation's largest health insurers. The market is forming around us, making it an exciting time to join!

Role Overview

We're seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to join our Claims Engine team. You'll work across three critical areas: our 270/271 Benefit Estimate API, claims adjudication integrations, and claims processing pipelines. This role sits at the core of how we process and price healthcare claims, and you'll own services that are essential to our product and our clients' operations.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain services that power 270/271 benefit estimate requests and responses.
• Develop and support performant, large-scale claims adjudication integrations.
• Own and improve claims processing pipelines for accuracy, reliability, and throughput.
• Write and maintain documentation for API contracts, data flows, and integration specifications.
• Write performant queries and manage data across PostgreSQL, Redis, and BigQuery.
• Collaborate with product and other engineering teams to translate complex healthcare workflows into reliable backend services.
• Participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and incident response.
• Contribute to the on-call rotation for production systems.

Requirements

• 8+ years building, owning, and maintaining backend services
• 2+ years writing Go
• Strong SQL skills, particularly PostgreSQL
• Experience with Redis and BigQuery (or similar analytical databases)
• Experience designing and building RESTful or gRPC APIs
• Experience with thorough testing strategies
• Docker/Kubernetes
• Google Cloud Platform

Preferred Qualifications

• gRPC/Protobuf experience
• Health insurance or claims processing experience
• Experience with 270/271 transactions or healthcare EDI
• Terraform/Terraform Cloud
• Python proficiency
• Incident management and response experience
• Start-up experience

Characteristics

• Self-directed and comfortable owning a domain end-to-end
• Mission-driven — motivated by making healthcare simpler and more transparent
• Willing to ask questions and admit what you don't know
• Detail-oriented — claims processing demands precision, and you hold yourself to that standard

Internal Tools/Technology

• Cursor / Linear / GitHub / Notion / Whimsical
• Slack / Google Workspace / Zoom
• Incident.io / Sentry
• Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini — we are an AI-forward engineering team
• macOS / Linux

Compensation

The target base salary range for this position is $150,000 - $225,000 and is part of a competitive total rewards package including equity and benefits. Individual pay may vary from the target range and is determined by several factors, including experience, skills, location, internal pay equity, and other relevant business considerations. 

Benefits/Offerings

• Bonus + equity
• Unlimited PTO (mandatory 12 days)
• Computer + home office stipend
• 401(k) + matching
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Autonomy and tons of room for career growth

Occasional Travel

We meet quarterly as a company.
Please note that this is a fully remote opportunity.