Senior Data Scientist – Python / Spark SQL

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together

Optum is seeking a Senior Data Scientist with extensive health care experience to lead efforts to expand and optimize analytical capabilities and insight generation within client organizations. This role will be responsible for partnering with operational, clinical, population health, risk management, and financial domain experts as well as analytical platform architects and other stakeholders to craft effective enrichments, models, and algorithms that drive insight and facilitate organizational improvement

Primary Responsibilities:

• Drive client value by:
  • Developing predictive models using various machine learning algorithms/best practices
  • Developing and running scripts for ML model inference
  • Testing various hypothesis and presenting back to the technical/non-technical audience
  • Responsible for performing cost benefit analysis for various DS initiatives
  • Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines for MLOps and DevOps functions
  • Creating artifacts like STM, HLD, LLD for hardening prototypes into production (prototype to hardening)
  • Applying knowledge of data modeling, statistics, machine learning, programming, simulation, and advanced mathematics to recognize patterns, identify opportunities, pose business questions, and make valuable discoveries leading to more actionable insights
  • Working with analytics and statistical software and products, such as SQL, R, Python, Hadoop and others to perform analysis and interpret data
  • Communicate the performance of the machine learning algorithms across an interdisciplinary team
• Create impact at scale by:
  • Developing and managing a comprehensive catalog of scalable data services that expand the value of analytical offerings
  • Looking for opportunities for continuous improvement/optimization of models in production.
    • Data Drift
    • Champion (Prod Model) Vs Challenger (Enhanced Dev Model)
  • Responsible for implementing best practices on ML architecture/workflows etc
  • Collaborating with business intelligence architects and domain analysts to maximize the effectiveness of business intelligence tools, dashboards, and other dynamic reporting capabilities
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree (preferably in information technology, engineering, math, computer science, analytics, engineering or other related field) 
• 5+ years of experience in handling/active development in data science projects
• 5+ years of experience in Microsoft Azure Cloud, Databricks, Mlflow, Spark SQL & Python
• Experience using Machine Learning Algorithms: Linear & Logistic Regression, Time Series analysis, Support Vector Machine, K-Means clustering, K-Nearest Neighbors Decision Trees, Random Forest, Naive Bayes, PCA, SVD, Artificial Neural Networks, Association Rules, Genetic Algorithm, Optimization, Bagging and Boosting algorithms etc.
• Highly proficient with hands-on experience in Python coding, Spark SQL and any other programming language along with corresponding language packages
• Understanding for data, schema, data model, machine learning and how to bring efficiency in big data related life cycle
• Skills to create opportunities using machine learning or artificial intelligence
• Proven excellent communication and presentation skills
• Proven solid analytical, problem-solving skills
• Proven cooperative and team player attitude

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience deploying and maintaining ML models in production
• Experience with model observability tools for insights into the behavior, performance, and health of your deployed ML models (tracking, alerting, compliance monitoring, etc.)
• MLOps Skills
• Experience supporting data pipelines that power analytical content within common reporting and business intelligence platforms (e.g. Power BI, Qlik, Tableau, MicroStrategy, etc.)
• Experience supporting analytical capabilities inclusive of reporting, dashboards, extracts, BI tools, analytical web applications and other similar products
• Experience contributing to cross-functional efforts with proven success in creating healthcare insights
• Familiarity with model versioning tools (MLFlow, etc.)
• Desire to continuously learn and seek new options and approaches to business challenges 
• A willingness to leverage best practices, share knowledge, and improve the collective work of the team
• Ability to effectively communicate concepts verbally and in writing

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone–of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income–deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes — an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.