Senior Programmer

Company Description

By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world‑changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is a world‑renowned institution dedicated to advancing public health through cutting‑edge research, education, and global collaboration. Our school is a special place to work because of its vibrant, mission‑driven community, interdisciplinary approach, and commitment to addressing some of the most pressing health challenges worldwide. We foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment where innovation, continuous learning, and work‑life balance are valued.

Learn more about the School’s mission, objectives, and core values, our Principles of Citizenship, and about the Dean’s AAA vision about our school’s ongoing strategic initiatives.

The Department of Epidemiology, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, studies the frequency, distribution, and determinants of disease in humans, a fundamental science of public health. In addition to pursuing ground‑breaking global research initiatives, we educate and prepare future medical leaders and practitioners as part of our mission to ignite positive changes in the quality of health across the world.

CAUSALab (within the Department of Epidemiology) conducts cutting edge research using large health care databases to determine what works. The investigators within the CAUSALab have obtained uninterrupted funding for their teams for more than 20 years. Currently this includes projects in HIV, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, COVID‑19, pregnancy and methodological applications of causal inference and artificial intelligence. Results from studies have informed guidelines for the treatment and prevention of multiple diseases and contributed to the innovation of methods to generate valid evidence from real world data.

The candidate will join a core team comprised of another Senior Programmer and two Programmers.

CAUSALab is seeking a full‑time Senior Programmer to support a research team of faculty members (principal investigators Barbra Dickerman, Miguel Hernán and Sonia Hernández‑Daz), postdoctoral researchers, students, and external collaborators. The Senior Programmer will be responsible for the management of healthcare databases and other complex databases, as well as for the development, maintenance, and documentation of code.

• Develop and deploy data cleaning, data management, variable creation, and variable naming protocols of projects involving electronic health records, administrative claims, and other complex databases
• Create and maintain databases using R and SAS in collaboration with members of the research team
• Create and link customized databases and analytic datasets in UNIX and Windows environments
• Lead the development, maintenance, and documentation of software in R and SAS (including R functions and SAS macros for data management and analysis support), and occasionally Python & SQL
• Function as a resource for researchers, post‑docs and other trainees to help debug programs and to access correct data
• Identify inefficiencies in the programming and data management infrastructure and advise the Principal Investigator on potential solutions and alternatives
• Obtain approval to access and work with data from US Veterans Administration
• Administer and maintain the team’s server infrastructure and be point of contact with institution's IT Department
• May assist the PIs with development of data management standard operating procedures and policies
• Performs other duties as assigned
• The successful applicant should have directly‑related, practical experience in SAS and/or R and SQL, an engineering‑like mindset, be mathematically oriented, and enjoy writing code for large and complex datasets.

• Minimum of 2+ years post‑secondary education and/or relevant work…