Principal Data Scientist

Optum is a global organisation 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. 

About the Role:

In healthcare, evolution doesn’t just happen. It takes innovation, imagination, and a passion for solving problems in new and better ways. And innovation is taking place at a lightning-fast pace every day at Optum. 
As the fastest growing part of the UnitedHealth Group family of businesses, we’re expanding our team in Ireland and creating excellent opportunities for those who want greater purpose and more impact in their work. We’ll provide the investment, support, and resources to advance your career. You’ll provide the talent, ambition, and drive. 

The  Principal Data Scientist will partner with Pharmacy business units to build scalable solutions to business problems. The role requires strong collaboration with internal partners to set the analytics direction and to deliver on identified opportunities. The successful candidate will contribute to creating and maintaining clear, strategic vision and a plan for bringing actionable, innovative analytic solutions to fruition. 

Careers with Optum offer flexible work arrangements and individuals who live and work in the Republic of Ireland will have the opportunity to split their monthly work hours between our Dublin or Letterkenny  office and telecommuting from a home-based office.

Primary Responsibilities:

•    Direct and implement analytic activities to support decision-making for UnitedHealthcare Pharmacy.
•    Collaborate with different lines of business to understand their analytic needs, propose & deliver business solutions and drive change.
•    Solve high visibility & high complexity problems, requiring strong domain knowledge & statistical understanding.
•    Provide technical leadership across the department to support various teams with their data science challenges, helping code and review where appropriate.
•    Build scalable data solutions for core business functions
•    Anticipate customer needs, proactively develop & deliver solutions to meet them, and forecast/predict the impact of business strategies.
•    Research, interpret, and analyse diverse and complex data and communicate findings to influence the business direction.
•    Utilise a broad range of analytic approaches including predictive analytics, issue detection, trend analysis, and data visualisation to best address the business priorities.

You will be rewarded and recognised 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 providing development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required qualifications: 

•    Degree Qualified (BA, BS) in relevant field (analytics, mathematics, economics, business, statistics, engineering, or finance) or equivalent experience
•    Significant experience in data analytics or data science, ideally with experience working with financial or healthcare-related data (e.g. pharmaceuticals, medical claims).
•    Experience working with messy data and imputation techniques. The ideal candidate will be able to identify and address data quality issues and use imputation techniques to fill in missing data where appropriate.
•    Proficient in researching, interpreting, and analysing diverse and complex data.
•    Extensive data manipulation skills across structured and unstructured sources/repositories such as relational and non-relational databases, CSV’s, API’s, text, Excel, etc.
•    Proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting language such as R or Python.
•    Demonstrated effective project ownership, management, drive & delivery
•    Stakeholder management experience, dealing with multiple stakeholders, and forming effective partnerships.
•    Strong business acumen, with the ability to strategically consult with the business. 
•    Demonstrated ability to communicate ideas clearly and concisely in writing and orally to individuals and groups.
 
Preferred Qualification:

•    Proficiency in a visualisation tool like Excel, Tableau, PowerBI or QlikView/QlikSense etc.
•    Experience or knowledge with cloud-based data analytics e.g. (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, Databricks)
•    Masters and/or PhD in Finance, Analytics, Economics, Mathematics, Econometrics, or other relevant field of study 
•    Experience in healthcare industry, especially drug pricing

Please note you must currently be eligible to work and remain indefinitely without any restrictions in the country to which you are making an application. Proof will be required to support your application.

All telecommuters will be required to adhere to the UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

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 marginalised 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.

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, race, and membership of the Traveller community, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optum is a drug-free workplace. © 2025 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.