Pelago is the leading specialty substance use care provider, built on the belief that effective treatment means matching care intensity to what each member actually needs rather than defaulting to the most expensive intervention. Our programs guide members through every stage of the substance use spectrum, from unhealthy habits to active use disorders, delivering personalized treatment for tobacco, alcohol, opioid, cannabis, and stimulant use based on individual health, habits, genetics, and goals.

With Sona, our voice-first AI Mental Health Specialist, Pelago now applies that same clinically-driven model to mental health, pairing deep clinical expertise with technology to expand access without compromising care quality. We believe technology should make clinical care more precise and more human, not replace the judgment behind it.

Pelago has scaled to helping hundreds of employers and health plans and has already helped more than 750,000 members better manage their substance use. If you're passionate about AI and making an impact on the health of others, join us and make it happen!

Overview of the Role

This is a Platform Engineering role with a Product Engineer's mindset. You'll own the foundation that Pelago's product and data run on. That means the infrastructure, the event-driven data platform, and the reliability and cost discipline that keep both healthy. You'll build with the end use in mind: reporting, member-facing features, and ultimately, clinical impact.

Pelago is building behavioral health care delivery from the ground up. It's AI-native and outcome-oriented, and what we ship has direct consequences for member health. Engineers here own meaningful problems end-to-end, from discovery through production and iteration.

We're looking for an engineer who builds reliable, event-driven systems on AWS and defines them as code. You should care how the platform is used, and you should be grounded enough to make sound trade-offs where member safety, privacy and reliability matter as much as speed. You'll join the Platform Product Engineering team; a current team of three.

This is a hybrid role with a high-collaboration rhythm (3 days/week in our NYC office).

About Pelago Engineering

Our engineering team operates as empowered, outcome-oriented problem solvers, working in close partnership with product, design, and clinical teams to improve member outcomes at scale.

As AI transforms how software is built, we are intentionally evolving our development lifecycle so we spend less time on mechanical implementation and more time on system design, judgment, and impact.

How We Work

Outcome-driven: Engineers are given problems to solve, not just features to build. Success is measured by learning, impact, and outcomes—not velocity alone
AI-native: We use AI across the SDLC to accelerate implementation, testing, and review. Engineers focus on defining intent, validating behavior, and designing resilient systems
High autonomy, high accountability: Teams have real ownership over their domains. With autonomy comes responsibility for quality, safety, and results
Cross-functional by default: Engineers partner deeply with Product, Design, Data, and Clinical. Discovery, experimentation, and delivery are shared responsibilities
Quality and safety matter: We build in a regulated, member-impacting domain. Reliability, observability, and correctness are first-class concerns

In This Role You Will

Own Pelago's event-driven data platform end-to-end. Build and evolve pipelines that bring data from our product, third-party platforms and external partners into our warehouse, reliably and securely.
Define and manage Infrastructure As Code and CI/CD, so environments are reproducible, changes ship safely, and any engineer can deploy with confidence.
Build a single, consistent pattern for adding new data sources and services, so engineers don't have to reinvent the pipeline.
Design with the final mile in mind. Deliver data and platform capabilities that support analytics and reporting and that can power member-facing product features.