Principal Data Engineer

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.  

Functions may include database architecture, engineering, design, optimization, security, and administration; as well as data modeling, big data development, Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) development, storage engineering, data warehousing, data provisioning and other similar roles. Responsibilities may include Platform-as-a-Service and Cloud solution with a focus on data stores and associated eco systems. Duties may include management of design services, providing sizing and configuration assistance, ensuring strict data quality, and performing needs assessments. Analyzes current business practices, processes and procedures as well as identifying future business opportunities for leveraging data storage and retrieval system capabilities. Manages relationships with software and hardware vendors to understand the potential architectural impact of different vendor strategies and data acquisition. May design schemas, write SQL or other data markup scripting and helps to support development of Analytics and Applications that build on top of data. Selects, develops and evaluates personnel to ensure the efficient operation of the function.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Architect and govern enterprise FinOps data platforms that consolidate, normalize, and enrich multi cloud billing, usage, and cost data; set standards for cost taxonomies, allocation rules, and chargeback models across domains
• Design and build reusable frameworks (data modeling, transformation patterns, orchestration templates) that scale; convert patterns into reference implementations and platform services
• Lead cost optimization strategy in partnership with Cloud Platform, Finance, and Product, right sizing, scheduling, anomaly detection, and cost aware architecture patterns
• Instrument platforms and CI/CD chains with diagnostics and KPIs that demonstrate business value, reliability, and data quality for cost data products
• Drive security, compliance, and governance for financial data across environments; proactively identify systemic risks and embed controls into designs and pipelines
• Influence stakeholders, translate technical concepts into business outcomes, align on roadmaps, and drive adoption of standards
• Be hands on where it matters most-owning critical data models and pipelines, leading complex refactors, and creating high leverage templates and guardrails
• Reviews the work of others
• Develops innovative approaches
• Sought out as expert
• Serves as a leader/ mentor
• 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:

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or related technical roles
• 7+ years of experience with advanced SQL development (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, or similar cloud data warehouses)
• 5+ years of experience designing and building data transformation pipelines and ETL/ELT solutions
• 5+ years of experience with dbt (data build tool) or similar transformation frameworks
• 5+ years of experience with cloud platforms (GCP preferred, AWS or Azure acceptable)
• Experience with CI/CD processes and tools (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar)
• Experience with orchestration tools (Apache Airflow, Cloud Composer, or similar)
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar)
• Solid understanding of data modeling concepts (dimensional modeling, star schema, normalization)
• Demonstrated ability to work with cross-functional teams and stakeholders
• Proven ability to articulate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in FinOps, cloud cost management, or financial data engineering roles
• Experience with cloud billing APIs and cost data integration from multiple cloud providers
• Experience designing enterprise-wide data platforms and canonical data models across domains
• Hands-on experience with Python for data engineering (pandas, API development, cloud SDKs)
• Experience with data quality frameworks and observability tools (monitoring/alerting systems)
• Experience leading architectural design reviews and establishing data engineering standards
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and build systems (Pants, Bazel, or similar)
• Expertise in multi-cloud cost data management and chargeback/allocation model design
• Advanced BigQuery expertise including complex query optimization, partition/cluster design, and slot/cost tuning
• Proven track record of mentoring engineering teams and driving adoption of best practices
• Proven excellent organizational, analytical, problem-solving and verbal/written communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and drive strategic decision-making

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.