Lead AI/ML 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.  

We are seeking a highly skilled AI/ML engineer with deep expertise in building and scaling enterprise AI/ML and digital applications to drive innovative healthcare solutions. This role blends hands-on AI/ML development with full-stack software engineering, enabling delivery of end-to-end intelligent, scalable, and user-facing systems.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Partner with business stakeholders and Technical Product Owners (TPOs) to translate business needs into AI/ML-driven and application solutions
• Drive end-to-end solution development across AI/ML models, backend services, and frontend applications
• Design, build, and deploy AI/ML models including deep learning, NLP, and LLM-based applications
• Develop responsive frontend applications using React and React Native
• Build scalable backend services and APIs using Java
• Design and manage databases using MongoDB, MySQL, and enterprise data platforms
• Implement and optimize MLOps pipelines including model deployment and monitoring
• Develop solutions using distributed computing frameworks such as Spark
• Design experiments, conduct analysis, and evaluate model performance
• Ensure production reliability across AI, backend, and frontend components
• Collaborate with governance teams to ensure compliance and responsible AI use
• Build scalable data pipelines for real-time and batch processing
• Communicate technical solutions to both technical and business stakeholders
• Stay current with emerging technologies across AI/ML, GenAI, and application development
• 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 or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field
• 8+ years of software engineering experience
• 5+ years of AI/ML experience
• Solid Python and ML/DL frameworks experience (PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Experience with LLMs and GenAI patterns (RAG, embeddings, NLP)
• Experience with React and/or React Native
• Experience with MongoDB and MySQL
• Experience with Spark or distributed computing
• Cloud experience (AWS or Azure)
• Experience deploying production-grade AI/ML systems
• Solid backend development using Java
• Proven solid communication and collaboration skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with healthcare data standards (FHIR, HL7)
• Experience building consumer-facing or digital health applications
• Experience with personalization and real-time
• Knowledge of Responsible AI, governance, and compliance
• Familiarity with agentic AI and conversational AI systems

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.