Cardinal Health Data Engineer Salary by Level

The figures here combine verified offers that data engineers self-reported with base-salary public filings whose total comp is modeled from peer ratios across healthcare distribution companies. Public filings capture base only, so the modeled adjustment adds an estimated bonus and, where applicable, equity to approximate a realistic total; those estimated totals are labeled as such in the ladder. With 10 reports across 2 levels, the pool is small enough that a single atypical offer can move a median meaningfully, and the staff level, carrying 6 reports, deserves more weight than the senior level's 4. Recency matters here too: Cardinal Health's compensation bands have not shifted dramatically in recent cycles, so older reports are still directionally useful, but any offer you receive today should be compared against the most recently dated datapoints rather than the full pool average.

Cardinal Health's comp structure at the data engineering level skews heavily toward base salary. The company operates as a large, margin-sensitive distributor, and its total comp packages reflect that: cash is the primary lever, with a target annual bonus that varies by band but is not the dramatic swing factor you'd see at a tech firm with a large variable component. Equity exists under the CAH ticker but plays a smaller role in total compensation than at software-product companies of comparable size; grants are modest and typically on a 3 or 4 year vesting schedule, so the annualized equity contribution does not dramatically lift the headline number for most DE roles. The convergence of $144K and $144K at the same figure is a real data point about band compression: moving from L5 to L6 here appears to affect title and scope more than it affects immediate cash.

Cardinal Health pays slightly below relative to other Healthcare companies, and the likeliest explanation is a combination of factors specific to healthcare distribution as a business model. Distributors operate on thin gross margins; Cardinal Health's pharmaceutical distribution segment runs margins well under 5%, which creates genuine pressure to keep function costs, including technology compensation, below what a software product company or a high-margin healthcare technology firm can justify. The Dublin, Ohio headquarters also draws from a Midwest labor market where comp expectations run below coastal tech hubs, and because the data engineering work is infrastructure-facing rather than revenue-generating, it competes internally against direct field operations for budget priority. That said, the discount against tech-sector peers is not the same discount as against the broader healthcare peer set, where Cardinal Health's scale and logistics complexity command at least a modest premium over smaller regional health systems.

The compressed ladder here, 2 levels and a median that barely shifts between them, means the highest-value negotiation move is usually clarifying scope before the offer is made rather than contesting the number after. If you can establish during the loop that the role involves owning a domain end to end, designing schemas with compliance requirements as a first-class constraint, or managing vendor EDI integration across a significant supplier set, that positions a staff-level conversation more naturally than arriving with a competing offer alone. Competing offers do matter at Cardinal Health, but the bands are tighter than at a tech employer, so a large outside offer from a FAANG-adjacent company may not move the base much; it is more likely to accelerate a title or scope discussion. The single highest-value action: before accepting, ask explicitly whether the role is classified at L5 or L6 and what the criteria are for a level review in the first 12 months, since band compression makes that conversation easier here than at most orgs.