Senior Software Engineer II

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 Senior Software Engineer II will drive the implementation of Unified Search capabilities for Optum, helping create a scalable, secure, and intelligent enterprise search experience across products, platforms, and data sources.

This role is suited for a hands-on engineering lead with strong Python expertise, experience with Azure / AWS cloud platforms, and the ability to guide front-end, back-end and data engineering resources through delivery. The engineer will lead implementation across API development, backend services, data integrations, GenAI-enabled search patterns, security considerations, and production readiness.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and implementation of backend services, APIs, and integrations that power Unified Search across Optum
• Build scalable, secure, and maintainable backend capabilities using Python and cloud-native engineering practices
• Drive implementation of search-related capabilities including query handling, retrieval workflows, metadata enrichment, filtering, ranking support, and integration with enterprise data sources
• Partner with product, architecture, data science, front-end, data engineering, security, and platform teams to translate Unified Search goals into executable technical plans
• Provide technical direction to front-end, back-end and data resources to ensure cohesive delivery across user experience, APIs, data pipelines, and search outcomes
• Design and support API contracts, service integrations, data access patterns, and operational workflows that enable reliable enterprise search experiences
• Apply working knowledge of AI and GenAI concepts, including semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation, embeddings, summarization, responsible AI, and evaluation practices
• Ensure solutions follow enterprise security, privacy, compliance, and data protection standards
• Lead code reviews, design discussions, technical planning, and implementation reviews to improve quality and maintainability
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, quality gaps, and delivery blockers, and drive resolution with cross-functional teams
• Support production readiness through observability, monitoring, logging, diagnostics, incident response, and continuous improvement
• Mentor engineers and help raise team capability in backend development, cloud engineering, secure coding, API design, and quality practices
• User Responsibilities:
  • Leverage enterprise-approved AI tools to enhance productivity and innovation by streamlining workflows and automating repetitive tasks. Evaluate emerging trends to drive continuous improvement and strategic innovation
• 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 degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 7+ years of software engineering experience building and supporting production-grade applications, APIs, backend services, or platform capabilities
• Solid hands-on backend engineering experience with Python
• Experience designing, developing, and supporting REST APIs or service-based integrations
• Experience with Azure or AWS cloud platforms and cloud-native application development
• Experience leading technical implementation across multiple workstreams or engineering disciplines
• Experience with Agile delivery, Git-based development, CI/CD, code reviews, automated testing, and production support
• Solid understanding of secure software development, API security, access control, secrets management, encryption, and data protection practices
• Familiarity with AI or GenAI-enabled application patterns, including semantic search, retrieval workflows, embeddings, or retrieval-augmented generation
• Proven solid problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and technical leadership skills
• Proven ability to guide front-end and data engineering resources through design, integration, testing, and delivery

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience delivering enterprise search, unified search, semantic search, recommendation, personalization, or knowledge discovery capabilities
• Experience working with front-end teams to deliver search experiences, search result interfaces, filtering, relevance feedback, or user-facing discovery flows
• Experience with observability practices including logging, metrics, tracing, dashboards, alerts, and operational runbooks
• Experience supporting healthcare, insurance, pharmacy, claims, clinical, or consumer-facing digital products
• Experience working in a matrixed enterprise environment with product, architecture, security, data science, and platform stakeholders
• Understanding of data governance, responsible AI, model evaluation, search relevance measurement, and privacy-preserving design

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.