Senior Data Analyst

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.

As a Fortune 3 business, we're one of the world's leading healthcare companies. There are no limits here on the resources you'll have or the challenges you'll encounter. We have been supporting global healthcare systems from Ireland and the UK for more than 20 years, building a dynamic and diverse team of more than 2,100 talented individuals. The Business Analyst will play a critical role in strengthening forecasting accuracy, data quality, and decision support across high-volume operational and financial workflows.

This role sits at the intersection of Operations, Business Strategy, and Data Insights, with responsibility for transforming complex data into clear, actionable intelligence for leadership. A core focus of this role is moving beyond basic dashboard reporting to uncover meaningful themes, trends, risks, and opportunities across both structured and unstructured data sources. This person will be expected to dive deeply into business questions, quickly analyze large and often imperfect data sets, and translate findings into practical recommendations that drive action.

The ideal candidate brings solid analytical judgment, technical fluency, and curiosity, with the ability to connect data from multiple sources, challenge assumptions, and surface insights that may not be immediately obvious. This role will also support key metric reporting for the business and help modernize analytics processes and data foundations, including supporting a likely transition to Snowflake and working with SQL-based data environments and server-level table views. Success in this role will require someone who is equally comfortable with hands-on data analysis, stakeholder engagement, and navigating ambiguity in a fast-moving operational setting. 

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:

• Lead deep-dive analytics to identify trends, themes, risks, and performance drivers across operational and business data
• Go beyond standard reporting to analyze structured and unstructured data, synthesize findings, and uncover actionable insights for leadership
• Support recurring key metric reporting for the business, ensuring leadership has accurate, timely, and decision-ready information
• Use SQL to query and analyze data from server-level table views and other enterprise data sources
• Partner with Operations, Finance, Workforce, Product, and technical teams to understand business questions and translate them into analytical approaches and meaningful outputs
• Perform root cause analysis to explain changes in performance, emerging trends, data anomalies, or operational shifts
• Help modernize legacy reporting and manual processes by identifying opportunities to improve automation, scalability, and analytical efficiency
• Support data platform evolution and future-state analytics capabilities, including readiness for migration to Snowflake or similar cloud-based data environments
• Validate data quality and investigate discrepancies across reports, source systems, and business definitions to improve trust in reporting
• Translate complex analytical findings into clear, concise insights and recommendations tailored to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Contribute to the design of scalable reporting logic, data definitions, and business rules that support consistent metric interpretation across teams
• Act as a thought partner to leadership by proactively identifying opportunities, risks, and areas for further investigation
• Any other activities as required

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: 

• Proven experience in Data Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Analysis, Reporting, Decision Support, or related roles supporting complex, high-volume operational environments 
• Proven experience using SQL to query large data sets, join data across multiple sources, and work with table views or curated data layers 
• Proven experience working with cloud-based data warehouse or analytics platforms, including querying, validation, and downstream reporting use cases 
• Proven ability to analyze large, ambiguous, or incomplete data sets and identify clear conclusions, themes, and trends 
• Proven experience working with structured and unstructured data to generate insights and answer business questions 
• Demonstrated solid analytical and problem-solving skills, including trend analysis, root cause analysis, and connecting operational activity to business outcomes 
• Proven experience developing reporting and analytical insights that support leadership decision-making, including KPI reporting, performance reviews, and ad hoc business analysis 
• Demonstrated proficiency across hybrid analytics environments, including SQL and at least one additional analytics or scripting tool such as Python, R, or advanced Excel 
• Proven experience with data validation, reconciliation, and quality assurance processes to ensure confidence in outputs and recommendations 
• Proven ability to translate business requirements into analytical frameworks and communicate findings to business and technical stakeholders 
• Demonstrated solid communication and data storytelling skills with the ability to explain outcomes, drivers, and recommended actions 
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities, work independently, and operate effectively in evolving environments with developing data and process maturity

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Proven experience supporting healthcare, operations, shared services, revenue cycle, or other regulated and high-volume environments 
• Proven experience with Snowflake or participation in data migration and modernization initiatives involving cloud-based analytics platforms 
• Demonstrated familiarity with data modeling, semantic layers, curated reporting views, and analytics engineering concepts 
• Proven experience using Python or similar tools for advanced analysis, data wrangling, automation, or pattern identification 
• Proven experience performing text analysis, data categorization, or insight extraction from unstructured or semi-structured data sources 
• Proven experience using business intelligence and data visualization tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar platforms to support insight generation and decision-making 
• Proven experience defining KPI logic, business rules, and metric governance in partnership with cross-functional stakeholders 
• Proven ability to work effectively with multiple data sources, evolving business definitions, and imperfect data while delivering timely and credible insights 
• Demonstrated success influencing stakeholders through data-driven recommendations, decision support, and process improvement initiatives 
• Proven experience partnering with technical teams on data architecture, reporting enhancements, or platform transition initiatives

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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