Principal Architect – 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.

The Optum Technology Digital team is on a mission to disrupt the healthcare industry, transforming UHG into an industry-leading Consumer brand. We deliver hyper-personalized digital solutions that empower direct-to-consumer, digital-first experiences, educating, guiding, and empowering consumers to access the right care at the right time. Our mission is to revolutionize healthcare for patients and providers by delivering cutting-edge, personalized and conversational digital solutions. We’re Consumer Obsessed, ensuring they receive exceptional support throughout their healthcare journeys. As we drive this transformation, we’re revolutionizing customer interactions with the healthcare system, leveraging AI, cloud computing, and other disruptive technologies to tackle complex challenges. Serving UnitedHealth Group’s digital technology needs, the Consumer Engineering team impacts millions of lives through UnitedHealthcare & Optum.

We are seeking a visionary and dynamic Principal Enterprise Architect to join our team in support of digital efforts within UHC Consumer Product focused on delivering solutions to UHC Members. The successful candidate will play a critical role in shaping the architectural landscape, focusing on the consumer digital domain, with a particular emphasis on enhancing the patient experience for mobile, web, and chat experiences.  In this role you will help make UHC’s consumer obsessed digital vision come to life by delivering our next generation mobile app to our UHC members.

You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. 

Primary Responsibilities:

• Craft and communicate the overarching architecture vision and technical strategies, securing buy-in at all organizational levels
• Provide expert recommendations and technical guidance to optimize system performance, reliability, and reusability, mindful of budgetary and business constraints
• Engage with multiple teams and vendors, offering assistance on ongoing projects, technical briefings, and demonstrations of emerging technologies
• Partner directly with business units to develop solutions and capabilities, acting as a key influencer with executives and other stakeholders
• Drive the definition of business, product, and technical strategies in collaboration with product managers and leaders
• Conduct rigorous research and analysis to define current states, identify gaps, and devise solutions for complex challenges
• Develop conceptual models of potential solutions, documenting them through a blend of textual descriptions and diagrams
• Make strategic architecture decisions that incorporate considerations for security, performance, scalability, reliability, and usability
• Present a decision matrix with solution recommendations to stakeholders and senior leadership
• Architect and guide Product Engineering Teams to deliver solutions that conform to enterprise architecture standards and contribute to the progression of technical strategies
• Promote the use of reusable patterns and collaborate on scope definition, application impacts, and sizing with business and engineering stakeholders
• Work with delivery teams to identify and mitigate technical debt, both short-term and strategically

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:

• 10+ years of experience in information technology
• 6+ years of experience in implementing and integrating technology solutions spanning data engineering, cloud solutions, system integration, solution design, development/configuration, and deployment
• 4+ years of experience in technical roles at an architect or senior engineer level
• 4+ years specializing in enterprise services that provide top-tier experiences, with a strong emphasis on non-functional requirements
• Experience in facilitating and leading solution design, architecture, and delivery planning activities across multidisciplinary teams
• Experience effectively communicating solutions and patterns to a geographically diverse workforce, including senior leaders and various resource groups
• Understanding of industry-standard patterns, practices, and technologies, especially streaming and containerization
• Proven ability to navigate complex business problems and solution options involving multiple domains and technologies

Preferred Qualifications:

• Professional experience in architecting and managing solutions on both private and public cloud platforms
• Experience working in Healthcare on the Provider side supporting member journeys
• Experience with cross domain Agentic Search architecture
• Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, or orchestrating Agentic Search systems leveraging cloud-native AI platforms such as Google Vertex AI Agent Builder, Amazon Bedrock, or Amazon Kendra
• Knowledge of Security, Privacy, and regulations pertaining to PHI, PII, or similar concerns
• Familiarity with enterprise-grade agentic architectures, including integration with legacy systems (e.g., IVR, BPM, RPA) and observability tooling for AI-driven workflows
• Proven track record of driving alignment within large, complex, matrixed organizations
• Proven hands-on expertise with multi-agent orchestration frameworks and autonomous AI agents capable of reasoning, planning, and adapting in dynamic enterprise environments
• Proven ability to evaluate and implement agentic AI capabilities aligned with business goals across domains such as healthcare, member services, or enterprise search

*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.