Director AI or ML Engineering – Remote

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 inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

Optum Insight AI-COE members:

• Deliver Business Value: We build and enable AI with emphasis on AI First approach to deliver business value
• Bias for Action: We are agile and move fast to create lasting value, making Healthcare better with use of AI
• Innovate: We embrace and drive technology innovation with laser focus on making a positive impact

You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Define and drive the AI Platform/Common Capabilities strategy aligned with enterprise goals, including roadmap planning, capability development and longterm scalability
• Partner with other engineering teams, data science and product managers to evangelize AI common capabilities, explore requirements to drive roadmap and support adoption for building comprehensive AI solutions across various businesses
• Lead the innovation and development of reusable AI capabilities/frameworks for managing model/prompt lifecycles, data processing pipelines, etc., in scalable cloud environments
• Oversee development and operations of robust AI/ML infrastructure to support model training/prompt development and deployment, data management, LLM integrations and monitoring
• Be a hands-on technical leader, actively contributing to technology evaluation, design and architecture of common AI systems capabilities, MLOps and LLMOps
• Provide strategic and technical direction on AI engineering best practices. Drive excellence and standardization across the AI Engineering team with a platform mindset, delivery efficiency and quality
• Mentor and grow a solid, high performing team of architects, leaders and engineers

You’ll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

• Masters degree in Computer Science or a related field with 8 years of working experience or Bachelors degree in Computer Science with 12+ years of experience
• 6+ years of experience in leadership roles having managed other leaders 
• Demonstrated experience leading and implementing AI/ML solutions and Software Platforms from ideation to delivery, evaluation, and maintenance in production 
• Proven experience in Python and AI/ML frameworks and tools (e.g., MLFlow, AWS Sagemaker, Azure AI Foundry, GCP Vertex AI) 
• Experience developing and deploying data pipelines, ML models and applications on Google Cloud plus Azure or AWS 
• Experience with GenAI pipelines and Agentic AI 
• Working knowledge of data and orchestration tools like Kafka, Spark, Airflow, and Kubernetes 
• Deep knowledge of software systems architecture for scale and reliability

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in healthcare (AI) 
• Experience with model observability tools for insights into the behavior, performance, and health of your deployed ML models (tracking, alerting, compliance monitoring, etc.) 
• Experience working with cross-functional and distributed teams in a global and diverse environment 
• Knowledge on security and vulnerability management (package scans, remediation) 
• Proven solid project management skills

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you’ll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $132,200 to $226,600 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

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.

UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.

UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.