Quality Engineer or Automation Testing Lead - Remote

Optum Insight is improving the flow of health data and information to create a more connected system. We remove friction and drive alignment between care providers and payers, and ultimately consumers. Our deep expertise in the industry and innovative technology empower us to help organizations reduce costs while improving risk management, quality and revenue growth. Ready to help us deliver results that improve lives? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.  

Optum Advisory Services operates on the intersection of strategy, business operations, data and technology to help our clients realize exceptional business value.  We harness data and technology and use them to reimagine business transformations to design and architect solutions that help realize exceptional value for our clients.  We are uniquely positioned to accelerate the value proposition for our clients across the healthcare ecosystem with our unwavering focus on making health system work better for everyone.

The Quality Engineer / Automation Testing Lead will be a key technical resource during solution implementation and ongoing release delivery, ensuring quality is built into the software development lifecycle. The primary role of the QE / Automation Lead is to define test strategy and quality standards, design and implement test automation frameworks, and lead execution across functional, integration, regression, and non-functional testing to ensure solutions meet business, performance, and compliance expectations. The technical domain of the QE / Automation Lead includes test planning, automation engineering, test data management, CI/CD quality gates, defect triage, environment coordination, and support of system and integration testing.

We are looking for a passionate professional preferably with more than 3+ years of experience in cloud implementations. This individual should be self-driven with an ownership mindset and self-motivated to continuously learn and invest in personal development as well as keep abreast of leading-edge cloud and data management technologies in the industry.

You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide technical leadership in quality engineering and test automation for modernization initiatives, including defining test strategy, automation approach, and quality metrics aligned to business outcomes
• Self-driven, ownership mindset to navigate ambiguity, identify options to resolve constraints, mitigate implementation risks and define solutions to implementation challenges with minimal supervision
• As part of the data management solution, implement appropriate data access and security patterns in alignment with appropriate regulatory and compliance standards such as HIPAA, PHI, PII, locational data restrictions, contractual, etc.
• Build partnership and rapport with client technical resources by demonstrating solid written and verbal communication, presentation, analytical and interpersonal skills
• Ability to work closely with Business Analysts and SMEs to understand business requirements
• Ability to work in a matrixed team environment with distributed responsibility across different teams
• Create Process Flows using diagraming tools like Visio and OmniGraffle
• Establish and maintain automation frameworks and standards (e.g., UI, API, and data-layer automation) to enable repeatable, scalable regression testing
• Create and maintain test plans, traceability, and coverage across requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria; define entry/exit criteria and risk-based testing approach
• Define and coordinate test data management and environment readiness, including synthetic data approaches and controls appropriate for HIPAA/PHI/PII
• Lead non-functional testing strategy and execution (performance, reliability, accessibility, and basic security validation as applicable) and ensure results are translated into actionable remediation
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines to enable continuous testing, quality gates, and timely feedback to engineering teams
• Proactive and diligent in identifying and communicating scope, design, development issues and recommending potential solutions
• Lead functional, integration, and regression test execution; manage defect lifecycle (triage, prioritization, root cause collaboration, retest/verification) and provide quality status reporting

You'll 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 provide development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or related area
• 5+ years of experience in quality engineering and testing across enterprise applications, including test planning, execution, and defect management
• 3+ years of hands-on experience designing and implementing test automation solutions (UI and/or API), including framework design, coding standards, and maintainable test suites
• 3+ years of implementation experience with enterprise and cloud initiatives on Azure, AWS, and/or Google Cloud, including experience testing cloud-hosted applications, services/APIs, and CI/CD-driven release processes
• 3+ years of experience working as part of quality engineering and/or delivery teams, including offshore teams, through a product life cycle - requirements, design, build, testing, deployment and production support
• Experience coding automated tests using one or more languages such as Java, C#, Python, or JavaScript/TypeScript, plus solid SQL skills for test data validation
• Excellent understanding of quality engineering concepts including test design techniques, risk-based testing, API testing, data validation, and automation patterns for reliable, scalable test suites
• Proficiency in software delivery experience using Agile including CI/CD and DevOps with constituent applications such as Jira, Rally, Aha, GitHub, Selenium, etc.
• Configuration Management using GitHub and/or other version control tools 
• Demonstrated ability to meet tight deadlines, follow development standards and effectively raise critical issues with the client 
• Demonstrated excellent oral and written communication skills 
• Ability to travel up to 50% - 70% based on the business needs and permissible travel conditions

Preferred Qualifications:

• Testing / automation certification 
• 3+ years of experience designing and implementing healthcare data and information management solutions and familiarity with healthcare payer/provider data with respect to Membership, Enrollment, Claims (Medical, Pharmacy etc.) and Clinical data 
• Experience with UI test automation tools/frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, or similar, including page object / component-based test design
• Experience with API testing and automation (e.g., RestAssured, Postman/Newman, Karate, or similar) including contract/response validation
• Experience with performance testing tools and practices (e.g., JMeter, k6, Gatling, LoadRunner) and interpreting results to drive performance improvements
• Experience with test management and quality reporting practices (e.g., Jira/Xray, Zephyr, TestRail, ADO Test Plans) and/or BDD approaches (e.g., Cucumber) to improve traceability and stakeholder visibility
• Experience with accessibility testing practices and/or basic security testing concepts (e.g., OWASP Top 10 awareness) in regulated environments
• Experience leading QA/QE teams and driving adoption of quality gates, metrics, and continuous improvement practices across releases
• Knowledge of HL7 and EDI transactions and related formats including FHIR APIs
• Understanding of cloud and platform architecture patterns that influence test strategy such as containerization, microservices, and event-driven systems, including implications for testing APIs, integrations, resiliency, and observability

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $91,700 to $163,700 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

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.

UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.

UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.