VP, Enterprise Platforms - Optum Financial Technology

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Optum Financial Technology is organized around three business-aligned domains - Commercial, Optum Bank and Consumer - sitting on one shared platform and one shared method. The VP, Enterprise Platforms owns the shared layer. This role leads the API and integration platform, the data platform, AI-assisted software development, the Quality Engineering Center of Excellence and the Agile Program Office into a single accountability for how Optum Financial builds software and what that software is built on.

The role has two halves that reinforce each other. The first is platform: building and scaling the capabilities every domain depends on, run as products with published interfaces, service levels and adoption metrics rather than as internal utilities. The second is method: leading the enterprise-wide product and agile SDLC transformation for Optum Financial, so that AI-assisted development, quality engineering and a genuine product operating model become how the whole organization works, not how a few teams work.

This leader operates as an enterprise steward. The platforms pay off when the domains adopt them, and the transformation lands when engineering leaders across the business domains change what they do day to day. Success is therefore measured on adoption, engineering throughput, quality and unit cost across Optum Financial as a whole - not on the output of the platform organization alone.

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:

Enterprise Platform Strategy and Ownership

*Owns the multi-year strategy, investment plan and roadmap for the shared platform layer of Optum Financial, aligned to the priorities of the Commercial, Optum Bank and Consumer domains.

*Runs every platform as a product - published interfaces, service levels, versioning, deprecation policy, self-service onboarding, and transparent adoption and consumption metrics.

*Resolves trade-offs across platforms, balancing net-new capability against the reliability, security and cost obligations of platforms already carrying production load.

*Sets build, buy and partner direction across the platform estate and consolidates overlapping tooling into a coherent, defensible stack.

*Leads through senior leaders, establishing clear accountability for delivery outcomes across platform and transformation teams in the US and India.

API and Integration Platform

*Owns the API and integration platform as the standard connective tissue of Optum Financial, covering API design standards, gateway and lifecycle management, developer experience, discoverability and reuse.

*Drives adoption so that internal, partner, bank and client integrations run through governed platform interfaces rather than bespoke point-to-point builds.

*Ensures the platform is secure, resilient and performant under regulated payment and banking transaction volumes, with defined service levels and error budgets.

*Partners with enterprise architecture so that API, event and data interfaces form one coherent integration model.

Data Platform

*Owns the Optum Financial data platform as the single governed data foundation serving AI, analytics and integration across all three business domains.

*Sets direction for ingestion, streaming, lakehouse storage, governed data products, semantic and feature layers, and the metadata, lineage and quality services beneath them, through the Sr. Director, Software Engineering - Data Platforms.

*Partners with the VP, AI/ML so the data platform is the fastest path from idea to deployed model or agent, and is never the constraint on AI velocity.

*Drives consolidation and decommissioning of legacy warehouses, duplicate pipelines and shadow data estates, reducing footprint and unit cost.

AI-SDLC and Engineering Productivity

*Leads the AI-assisted software development lifecycle for Optum Financial, scaling the practices proven inside individual product teams into the standard way every engineer works.

*Owns the engineering toolchain end to end - source control, pipelines, AI development assistants, automated testing, security scanning and release automation - as one integrated paved path.

*Establishes the measurement system for engineering productivity and quality, and holds the organization to demonstrable improvement in throughput, cycle time, defect rates and cost per unit of delivery.

*Builds embedded advanced engineering capability that works alongside domain teams where adoption needs hands-on acceleration rather than guidance.

Quality Engineering Center of Excellence

*Leads the Quality Engineering Center of Excellence, setting the standards, tooling, automation strategy and competency model for quality across Optum Financial.

*Shifts quality left into engineering practice and into AI-assisted development, moving the organization from downstream test execution to engineered quality and continuous verification.

*Establishes objective quality measurement across domains and uses the evidence to determine where quality engineering should centralize and where it stays embedded in delivery teams.

*Ensures quality practices satisfy the audit, control and evidence obligations of regulated financial and healthcare environments.

Product and Agile Operating Model Transformation

*Owns the enterprise-wide product and agile SDLC transformation for Optum Financial, moving the organization from project-and-funding cycles to persistent, outcome-accountable product teams.

*Leads the Agile Program Office as the mechanism that makes the operating model real - consistent planning cadence, dependency and capacity management, flow metrics and transparent delivery reporting across all three domains.

*Partners with technology product management, business domain leaders and finance to align funding, roadmaps and value measurement to the product operating model.

*Leads the change agenda directly with engineering and delivery leaders across the business unit, addressing resistance and holding the new way of working in place once adopted.

Financial Stewardship and Operating Leverage

*Owns the platform and transformation budget including capital, O&M, cloud and vendor spend, managed from forecast to actuals.

*Drives FinOps and cost engineering discipline with consumption transparency by domain, converting shared platform scale into measurable savings for the business.

*Optimizes the operating model and cost structure to create engineering operating leverage - more capability delivered per dollar and per engineer as volume grows.

*Partners on business case development with cost-benefit support, and reports value realization from platform investment at enterprise governance.

Governance, Risk and Resilience

*Ensures the platform estate meets security, privacy, compliance and regulatory obligations across financial services and healthcare, in partnership with security, risk and compliance.

*Engineers control, auditability and evidence into the platforms and the SDLC so that compliance is a property of the system rather than a manual attestation.

*Owns resilience and recoverability standards for shared platforms, and leads response and remediation when shared capability is degraded.

*Uses data and transparency to drive enterprise decisions and performance management, escalating candidly where adoption or results lag the plan.

People, Culture and Leadership

*Builds enterprise-grade leadership capability through layered leadership rather than direct execution, and develops a deep bench across platform and quality engineering.

*Leads workforce evolution, shifting the talent mix toward platform engineering, AI engineering, quality engineering and product management as the SDLC changes.

*Influences enterprise technology decisions without positional authority, aligning domain leaders around shared platforms and a shared method.

*Shapes culture through leader behavior, driving accountability, inclusion, psychological safety and engineering craft.

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:

• BS in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience

• 15+ years of progressive technology leadership, including executive accountability for engineering or platform organizations in complex, matrixed environments

• Proven track record building and scaling enterprise platforms - API and integration, data, or developer platforms - with demonstrated adoption across independent business units

• Demonstrated experience leading an enterprise SDLC, agile or product operating model transformation across an organization of several hundred technologists or more

• Experience introducing AI into software development at organizational scale, with measurable productivity and quality outcomes

• Deep experience in modern engineering practice, including continuous integration and delivery, DevOps, site reliability engineering, test automation and infrastructure as code

• Experience owning enterprise quality engineering strategy and building quality into engineering practice rather than downstream testing

• Experience operating in regulated environments across financial services, healthcare, or both

• Experience owning a substantial technology budget with accountability for cost structure and value realization

• Demonstrated ability to influence C-suite and peer executive stakeholders and drive adoption without direct authority

• Solid track record of building, scaling and evolving leadership teams, including global and India-based engineering organizations

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in payments, banking, healthcare payments or financial technology

• Experience standing up or leading an agile program office at enterprise scale

• Experience delivering data or AI platform capability in support of an AI transformation agenda

• Advanced degree

*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 $200,400 to $343,500 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. Together, we are shaping the future of healthcare by harnessing technology and innovation to make care simpler to navigate, more affordable and more connected for the people we serve. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels welcomed, valued, heard and respected, empowering people to bring their authentic selves to work and strengthening our collective impact through diverse talents, backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.

UnitedHealth Group and its affiliated brands are 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 and its affiliated brands are a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.