Principal Data Scientist - Network Analytics & AI Enablement

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 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.

We are hiring multiple Principal Data Scientists across our Network Analytics and AI Enablement teams. The aim of these roles is to apply advanced analytics to lower the cost of healthcare for our members. These are senior, hands-on individual contributor roles with clear expectations for technical leadership. You will lead complex projects end-to-end, framing the problem, developing approaches, coding solutions, and partnering with engineering and business teams to implement them in production and operations.

As we have multiple openings across two teams, candidates do not need to have experience in every responsibility listed below. We are open to candidates with depth in some areas and interest in expanding into others.

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 in a hybrid work model.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Code daily to build and deploy impactful data science solutions, taking full ownership of projects, delivering measurable improvements in healthcare cost, quality, and access
• Lead by example as a hands-on technical expert, writing production-grade code and contributing directly to the development of big data systems, pipelines, tools and models
• Build LLM-assisted workflows using prompt engineering, retrieval, and human-in-the-loop review. Implement robust evaluation to validate the correctness and consistency of any LLM outputs
• Collaborate closely with business and technical leadership, acting as a strategic thought partner to shape the roadmap for provider networks, claims data, and member experience
• Take joint ownership with Data Engineering for the availability, quality, and enrichment of our data
• Triage AI and ML opportunities, define business requirements, and lead development of solutions aligned with strategic goals
• Proactively surface emerging risks and opportunities, using anomaly detection, fraud analytics, and pattern recognition to inform strategic interventions
• Mentor and elevate the data science team, demonstrate an interest in emerging technology, fostering a culture of curiosity, rigor, and continuous learning
• Represent the data science function in executive forums, clearly communicating technical insights and their strategic implications to influence decisions and investments
• Contribute to the evolution of data science infrastructure
• Translate complex healthcare data into actionable insights
• Develop your understanding of healthcare and the U.S. healthcare system, ensuring that solutions are context-aware and impactful

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

Required Qualifications:

• Undergraduate degree in a quantitative field such as mathematics, actuarial science, statistics, computer science, engineering, or a related discipline
• Demonstrated deep expertise in SQL and Python/R, with a proven track record of building data science solutions
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems through hands on coding and model development
• Proven experience applying data science to real world business challenges, delivering measurable impact
• Demonstrated solid communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to diverse audiences and influence decision making
• Proven experience providing leadership in collaborative, cross functional settings, including mentoring and setting technical direction

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree, PhD in a quantitative field or relevant professional qualification

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.  

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.


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. © 2026 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.

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