IT Applications Engineer V - Data Science, Data & AI Engineering, Application Engineering

Expectations:

1. Rapidly absorb and master new Gen AI and data science technologies, maintaining a working knowledge of the frontier (open-weight medical models, multimodal frameworks, agentic architectures, evaluation methodologies).
2. Design and deliver medical-grade, LLM-driven applications to production - navigating the full lifecycle from ideation and architecture through governance, validation, deployment, and post-production monitoring.
3. Work within a team of like-minded AI engineers and data scientists, collaborating closely with physician SMEs, clinical operations leaders, and platform partners to translate clinical problems into durable, scalable AI solutions.
4. Contribute to architecture and technical strategy across a portfolio of initiatives spanning RAG, clinical NLP, computer vision, and multimodal AI - setting patterns that other engineers can extend.
5. Partner with governance bodies (Responsible AI, TRO, Enterprise Architecture, Legal) to ensure solutions meet KP's standards for safety, privacy, and clinical quality.

Responsibilities:

• Bring senior-level engineering depth that complements the existing team, contributing to end-to-end design and delivery of clinical AI and Gen AI applications - from data ingestion through model serving and clinical integration.
• Design, prototype, and productionize LLM-driven solutions - including RAG pipelines, clinical summarization, structured data extraction, and multimodal (vision + language) workflows - on KP's approved AI platforms (NexusOS, ThriveAI, Databricks).
• Co-develop and evolve reusable architectural patterns, engineering standards, and reference implementations that accelerate delivery across the broader portfolio of clinical AI use cases.
• Collaborate with physician subject matter experts, clinical operations, and service-line leaders to scope use cases, define success criteria, and ensure solutions integrate cleanly with Epic/HealthConnect and existing clinical workflows.
• Partner with Responsible AI, TRO, Enterprise Architecture, and Legal to shepherd solutions through governance, authoring model cards, risk review documentation, and solution architecture documents as needed.
• Contribute to the technical growth of the team through design reviews, code reviews, pairing, and knowledge sharing.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and vendor solutions (open-weight models, imaging AI platforms, chart abstraction tools) and contribute evidence-based buy-vs-build recommendations.
• Help shape the strategic technical roadmap for clinical AI across NCAL, including the evolution of the imaging AI platform and the expansion of Gen AI patterns into new clinical domains.

Additional information:

The Data Science team sits within Data & Analytics in the KP ITSO organization and is responsible for the design, delivery, and stewardship of clinical AI and machine learning solutions across the region. The team partners directly with The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) physicians and clinical operations leaders to build AI that measurably improves care delivery.

The technical environment spans Epic/HealthConnect, Databricks/Delta Lake, Clarity, NexusOS (Azure OpenAI-backed LLM gateway), ThriveAI (on-premises Kubernetes), and a growing set of multimodal and agentic frameworks (LangChain/LangGraph, MCP, MONAI, MedGemma).

The team culture centers on continuous learning, thinking outside the box, and direct, technically rigorous collaboration with clinical partners - biased toward production impact over research novelty. Familiarity with object-oriented design principles and modern engineering practices such as extreme programming is a plus.

This senior level employee is primarily responsible for translating business requirements and functional specifications into software solutions, for contributing to and leveraging the technical direction for the development of integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions, and for serving as a technical expert for project teams while providing consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed.

• Conducts or oversees business-specific projects by applying deep expertise in subject area; promoting adherence to all procedures and policies; developing work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; determining and carrying out processes and methodologies; coordinating and delegating resources to accomplish organizational goals; partnering internally and externally to make effective business decisions; solving complex problems; escalating issues or risks, as appropriate; monitoring progress and results; recognizing and capitalizing on improvement opportunities; evaluating recommendations made; and influencing the completion of project tasks by others.
• Practices self-leadership and promotes learning in others by building relationships with cross-functional stakeholders; communicating information and providing advice to drive projects forward; influencing team members within assigned unit; listening and responding to, seeking, and addressing performance feedback; adapting to competing demands and new responsibilities; providing feedback to others, including upward feedback to leadership and mentoring junior team members; creating and executing plans to capitalize on strengths and improve opportunity areas; and adapting to and learning from change, difficulties, and feedback.
• As part of the IT Engineering job family, this position is responsible for leveraging DEVOPS, and both Waterfall and Agile practices, to design, develop, and deliver resilient, secure, multi-channel, high-volume, high-transaction, on/off-premise, cloud-based solutions.
• Provides insight into recommendations for technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
• Translates business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
• Ensures appropriate translation of business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
• Serves as an expert for innovative technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
• Facilitates and serves as a technical expert for project teams throughout the release schedule of business and enterprise software solutions.
• Builds and maintains trusting relationships with internal customers, third party vendors, and senior management to ensure the alignment, buy-in, and support of diverse project stakeholders.
• Recommends complex technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
• Collaborates with architects and/or software consultants to ensure functional specifications are converted into flexible, scalable, and maintainable solution designs.
• Provides expertise and guidance to team members for systems incident responses for complex issues.
• Provides implementation and post-implementation triage and support of business software solutions by programming and/or configuring enhancements to new or packaged-based systems and applications.
• Reviews and validates technical specifications and documentation.
• Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions to support technical solutions while incorporating architectural designs.
• Supports component integration testing (CIT) and user acceptance testing (UAT) for application initiatives by providing triage, attending test team meetings, keeping the QC up-to-date, performing fixes and unit testing, providing insight to testing teams in order to ensure the appropriate depth of test coverage, and supporting the development of proper documentation.
• Leads systems incident support and troubleshooting for complex and non-complex issues.
• Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions, as required, to support technical solutions serving as an escalation point for complex or unresolved issues related to requirements translation.
• Develops and validates complex testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
• Participates in all software development lifecycle phases by applying comprehensive understanding of company methodology, policies, standards, and internal and external controls.
• Develops, configures, or modifies basic to moderately complex integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions within various computing environments by designing and coding component-based applications using programming languages.
• Provides consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed with insight into industry best practices, strategies, and architectures.
• Builds partnerships with IT teams and vendors to ensure written code adheres to company architectural standards, design patterns, and technical specifications.
• Leads the development, validation, and execution of testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
• Leads, mentors, and trains other technical resources to develop software applications.