I m supporting an opportunity with the for multiple Data Standards Programmer positions. These positions will support the modernization, development, and maintenance of biomedical terminology, clinical interoperability, and data standards platforms, including UMLS, RxNorm, VSAC, SNOMED CT, LOINC, and HL7 FHIR-based services.
Please review the details below and let me know if you are interested. If so, please share your updated resume, hourly rate expectations, availability, preferred position level, and confirmation that you can support the hybrid work arrangement in Bethesda, Maryland.
Additional Details
Client: National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Positions
- Data Standards Programmer Intermediate
- Data Standards Programmer
- Data Standards Programmer Principal
Location: Bethesda, MD
Work Arrangement: Hybrid onsite and remote
Clearance: Must be eligible to complete government background checks and obtain a Public Trust clearance
Work Authorization: U.S. Citizens, Green Card holders, and H-1B candidates may be considered
About The Role
The Data Standards Programmer will develop, modernize, and maintain applications and automated data pipelines supporting biomedical terminology, clinical research data, healthcare interoperability, and data dissemination services.
The selected candidate will work with terminology platforms such as the Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus, RxNorm, the Value Set Authority Center, SNOMED CT, LOINC, MeSH, and electronic clinical quality measures.
The work includes converting and validating healthcare terminology data, automating ETL processes, modernizing legacy applications, migrating workloads to AWS, developing HL7 FHIR-compliant services and APIs, and improving the quality, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of biomedical datasets.
Position Levels
Data Standards Programmer Intermediate
This is a hands-on development position requiring at least five years of relevant experience. The individual will assist with programming, terminology mapping, ETL automation, data validation, application modernization, and AWS migration activities.
Data Standards Programmer
This position requires at least five years of relevant experience and the ability to independently design, develop, and maintain biomedical data applications and pipelines. The individual may also provide technical guidance, support data governance initiatives, and mentor members of the development team.
Data Standards Programmer Principal
This is a technical leadership and architecture position requiring at least ten years of relevant experience. The individual will define technical blueprints, lead modernization efforts, establish AWS and CI/CD standards, oversee code quality, and serve as a technical liaison to NLM and NIH stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain code that automates the processing of major medical terminologies, including UMLS, SNOMED CT, RxNorm, LOINC, and MeSH.
- Program, map, transform, validate, and process medical vocabularies within the UMLS Metathesaurus and VSAC.
- Write Java, Python, Perl, or comparable scripts to convert and validate healthcare data against HL7, FHIR, and other federal or international interoperability standards.
- Design, build, and maintain automated application and ETL pipelines for biomedical terminology and clinical research data.
- Implement automated testing frameworks to detect errors, inconsistencies, duplicate content, and version conflicts in large terminology datasets.
- Support value-set authoring, curation, expansion, and enhancement activities for NIH and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services healthcare systems.
- Import new code-system data used to curate CMS C-CDA value sets within VSAC.
- Support digital clinical quality measures and electronic clinical quality measures.
- Review and advise stakeholders regarding value-set content issues and healthcare interoperability requirements.
- Update UMLS content and modernize UMLS Terminology Services using current technologies.
- Automate and maintain RxNorm source inversion and insertion processes.
- Develop APIs for retrieving value sets from VSAC repositories in formats conforming to HL7 FHIR specifications.
- Design and maintain RESTful APIs and FHIR servers supporting healthcare and biomedical terminology services.
- Develop enterprise-wide data standards for NLM s Office of Computer and Communications Systems.
- Establish and maintain data governance frameworks, metadata repositories, data dictionaries, and data-quality standards.
- Perform data profiling, cleansing, validation, mapping, transformation, and quality analysis.
- Develop data-quality reports, measurements, and monitoring metrics.
- Retrieve and assemble data from multiple systems and formats and create derived datasets for research use.
- Implement FAIR principles to make biomedical data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
- Collaborate with data architects, database administrators, software developers, researchers, and federal stakeholders to optimize data models and system structures.
- Modernize legacy on-premises biomedical applications and migrate workloads to AWS cloud environments.
- Maintain and modernize the MEDIT system by removing ColdFusion dependencies, improving security, reducing maintenance requirements, and supporting cloud migration.
- Migrate pre-release applications and ETL tools from Oracle to PostgreSQL.
- Develop scalable microservices to replace legacy UMLS and VSAC tools.
- Implement containerized solutions using Docker and Kubernetes.
- Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code standards, static code-analysis controls, and automated deployment processes.
- Ensure applicable system architectures align with federal security requirements, including FISMA and FedRAMP security baselines.
- Work within Agile sprint cycles and collaborate with multidisciplinary development teams.
- Resolve technical and data-quality issues and deliver stable, secure, maintainable software.
- Improve system usability, search-engine discoverability, and mobile support for field-based data collection.
- Provide technical leadership, architecture guidance, code-review oversight, and mentorship based on the assigned labor category.
- Stay current with healthcare informatics, biomedical terminology, interoperability, cloud computing, and data-management standards.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor s or master s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Biomedical Informatics, or a closely related discipline.
- Minimum of five years of relevant hands-on experience for the Intermediate and Data Standards Programmer positions.
- Minimum of ten years of relevant hands-on experience for the Principal position.
- Demonstrated experience processing or maintaining biomedical or healthcare terminology systems such as UMLS, RxNorm, VSAC, SNOMED CT, LOINC, or MeSH.
- Experience working with HL7, FHIR, C-CDA, healthcare value sets, or related interoperability standards.
- Programming or scripting experience using Java, Python, Perl, or comparable languages.
- Working knowledge of SQL and database technologies such as MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB.
- Experience working with XML, JSON, data transformation, data mapping, and structured healthcare data.
- Experience with data modeling, data governance, metadata management, data profiling, and data-quality management.
- Experience developing automated ETL pipelines and testing frameworks.
- Experience with AWS cloud migration, containerization, Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Knowledge of data warehousing and business-intelligence concepts.
- Ability to work in an Agile, team-oriented development environment.
- Ability to pass required background investigations and obtain a Public Trust clearance.
Additional Principal-Level Qualifications
- Extensive experience designing semantic frameworks using UMLS, SNOMED CT, RxNorm, MeSH, and related biomedical standards.
- Proven experience designing enterprise-scale HL7 FHIR servers and custom RESTful APIs.
- Experience leading the migration of complex legacy biomedical systems into resilient AWS environments.
- Experience developing technical architectures, ingestion frameworks, data-mapping schemas, and modernization roadmaps.
- Experience establishing CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, static analysis, and cloud deployment standards.
- Experience ensuring systems comply with FISMA, FedRAMP, and other federal security requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to provide technical governance and code-review oversight.
- Experience communicating directly with federal program officials, technical stakeholders, and healthcare informatics specialists.
Preferred Certifications
For The Intermediate And Data Standards Programmer Positions
- AWS Certified Developer Associate
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect
- Certified ScrumMaster
- Professional Scrum Master
For The Principal Position
- AWS Certified Developer
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
- HL7 FHIR Certified Professional
- HL7 Reference Information Model Specialist
- Certified Scrum Product Owner
- SAFe Agilist
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering and cloud-modernization experience with specialized knowledge of biomedical terminology and healthcare interoperability.
The candidate should be capable of translating complex terminology datasets and healthcare standards into secure, scalable, and maintainable applications. Strong candidates will have direct experience with UMLS, RxNorm, VSAC, SNOMED CT, HL7 FHIR, ETL automation, AWS, APIs, and federal healthcare systems.
Principal-level candidates must also demonstrate architecture leadership, stakeholder communication, technical governance, and experience directing enterprise-scale modernization initiatives.
Interested Candidates Should Provide
- Updated resume
- Position level for which they are applying
- Hourly rate expectation
- Current location
- Availability or earliest start date
- Work-authorization status
- Confirmation of availability for hybrid work in Bethesda, MD
- Confirmation of eligibility for a Public Trust investigation
- Signed Letter of Commitment
- Three relevant professional or project references