By Rob Duffy, CTO, HealthEdge
It’s easy to talk about innovation in healthcare technology; it’s harder to build it in a way that scales for health plans and improves real outcomes. At HealthEdge, we’re doing both. In this fireside-chat style Q&A, I sat down with Mark Mucha, our new Enterprise Architect at HealthEdge, to explore how his background, mindset, and day-to-day work fuel product innovation and modern engineering practices across our portfolio of solutions.
Rob: Let’s start with the basics: What does an enterprise architect at HealthEdge do?
Mark: It’s a newer title for me, and honestly, in this role, I wear a lot of hats. I participate in and run architecture reviews, offer guidance to teams, and, when it helps, I embed directly to write code or troubleshoot. I spend time on enablement—training and mentoring across our tech leadership group and the broader independent contributor (IC) community. I also pitch in wherever there’s a gap: coordinating with AWS on training rollouts, helping plan on-sites and off-sites, and joining early M&A conversations to understand how new capabilities could fit and add value. In short, I’m here to unblock teams and connect dots. Sometimes that’s a design decision, sometimes it’s hands-on help, and sometimes it’s just getting the right people together so we can move faster for our customers.
Rob: You’ve said before that “code never lies.” How do you ramp up so quickly on unfamiliar systems, and how does that translate to innovation for our customers?
Mark: I start with the source: read the code paths that matter, instrument what isn’t observable, and follow the data. Curiosity is the superpower here. I triangulate from multiple lenses, like unit tests, metrics dashboards, error logs, API contracts, even production traffic patterns, and build a mental model fast. That discipline uncovers truths about latency, reliability, and maintainability that conversations alone can miss. For health plans, that means we modernize carefully—keep what works, fix what doesn’t, and roll out well-tested changes in small but meaningful steps.
Rob: You shared with me a memorable line—you like to automate yourself out of a job. Where did that come from, and what does it mean inside HealthEdge?
Mark: The line comes from a very real moment early in my career. I was on a missile program at Lockheed Martin, and my task was to drive a GUI the same way, over and over, all day. It was mindnumbing and errorprone. On the first day, I thought there had to be a better way to do this. I put together a small automation that clicked through the workflow exactly the way the team needed, reliably and fast.
I thought that meant I could hand it off and move on to something more challenging. Instead, they decided to keep me on and have me automate more processes. That was the lesson: when you automate a painful process, you don’t make yourself irrelevant—you make the work better for everyone, and your responsibility shifts to improving and maintaining the new, cleaner path.
That mindset stayed with me. Whenever I’m working on something that I really don’t like, I force a new lens: how do we make this better—for me, for the team, for the next person who touches it? Sometimes the answer is automation; sometimes it’s changing the process. At HealthEdge, that shows up in cutting repetitive steps, writing down what works so others can reuse it, and creating simple paths so teams can focus on solving real-world problems for health plans.
Rob: You’ve also served in the military. How did that experience shape how you lead and build software?
Mark: The military gave me three things I still rely on every day: structure, mentorship, and camaraderie. Structure taught me to value clear goals and preparation. Mentorship showed me what good leadership looks like and why teaching is part of the job. And camaraderie—working in a team where people look out for each other sets the tone for how I show up at work. At HealthEdge, that translates to listening first, being dependable, and creating space for others to do their best work. When teams have clarity and trust, good software follows.
Rob: We talk a lot about bringing modern best practices into health insurance. What does that look like on the ground?
Mark: For me, it starts with people and purpose. I’ve always wanted my work to make a difference, and that shows up in small ways—like building educational video games with my daughter and paying attention to how real users learn. In our products, that translates to listening first, learning from the folks closest to the work, and removing friction they feel every day. I like environments where I’m empowered and can empower others—give teams clarity, trust them to execute, and create space to ask good questions. When we do that, the “best practices” take care of themselves: we tighten feedback loops, write down what we learn, and improve the experience one pragmatic step at a time. No heroics—just steady, human-centered progress that helps our customers and the members they serve.
Rob: Mentorship and community-building seem to be core to your approach. Why does that matter in a product organization like ours?
Mark: Innovation is a team sport. I host a monthly AMA so individual contributors have a direct line to technology leadership. The intent is simple: surface friction early, spot patterns across teams, and close the loop quickly. Mentorship is part coaching, part matchmaking—I don’t know everything, but I can connect people to the right partner or pattern. We invest in clear growth paths, study groups for certifications, and short, hands-on coaching sessions in the areas teams ask about most—observability, cost optimization, secure-by-default services, and FHIR workflows. Strong communities de-risk delivery because knowledge isn’t trapped; it moves.
Closing Thoughts
Spending time with Mark is a reminder of what makes HealthEdge special: builders who pair humility with high standards, and who care as much about people as they do about systems. Mark brings that mix every day—and he’s part of a broader, cross-functional team of experts that spans the entire HealthEdge portfolio. Architects, product managers, SREs, clinicians, data scientists, designers—seasoned veterans working shouldertoshoulder with phenomenal new teammates who’ve recently joined us from across healthcare and enterprise technology backgrounds.
