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.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a team of software engineers through the design, development, and delivery of secure, cloud-native AI-powered applications
• Act as technical lead and coach, providing architecture guidance, code reviews, and hands-on implementation
• Design, develop, and deploy AI agents and LLM-powered systems (task automation, decision support, orchestration, RAG, tool-use)
• Architect and implement cloud-native solutions using Azure services with high availability, scalability, and cost awareness
• Own end-to-end delivery using an AI-centric SDLC, including spec-driven development, governance checkpoints, evaluation pipelines, CI/CD, and observability
• Build secure-by-design applications using modern cloud security patterns: identity-first design, secrets management, encryption, and least-privilege access
• Embed security, privacy, and compliance controls into AI workflows (data handling, model access, prompt safety, logging, auditability)
• Define and enforce engineering best practices for AI systems: testing, guardrails, monitoring, performance, and incident response
• Collaborate closely with product, platform, security, and compliance teams to deliver reliable and responsible AI solutions
• Develop shared cloud and agent frameworks to accelerate reuse and standardization across teams
• Contribute directly to production code and participate in operational support as required
• 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 regard 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:

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience delivering and operating production systems.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience developing AI solutions, including AI agents and LLM-powered workflows.
• Demonstrated experience leading software engineers (Lead Engineer, Tech Lead, or similar role).
• Solid experience building secure applications, including:
  • Authentication and authorization (OAuth/OIDC, RBAC, managed identities)
  • Secure APIs and data protection (encryption in transit/at rest, secrets management)
  • Secure SDLC practices (threat modeling, secure code reviews, vulnerability remediation)
• Solid experience with cloud platforms, with emphasis on Microsoft Azure, including:
  • Azure App Services, Azure Functions, Containers / AKS
  • Azure Storage, Azure SQL / Cosmos DB, messaging services
  • Azure identity, networking, monitoring, and security controls
• Proficiency in Python (preferred) and/or Java, TypeScript/Node.js, or C#, with strong system design fundamentals
• Familiarity with AI engineering tools and workflows, including:
  • ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), and Codex-style AI coding/engineering tools
• Experience with AI-centric SDLC practices and tooling, such as:
  • GitHub Spec-Kit or equivalent spec-driven development tooling
  • Amazon AI-DLC or similar AI development lifecycle frameworks
• Solid understanding of AI-specific risks and controls (hallucinations, prompt injection, data leakage, privacy)
• Excellent communication and leadership skills with the ability to align teams and stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading multi-engineer teams delivering AI capabilities at scale in cloud environments
• Experience with agent orchestration frameworks or patterns (LangGraph/LangChain, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent)
• Experience implementing RAG architectures, vector databases, and embedding strategies
• Experience with cloud DevOps practices: CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring, and cost optimization
• Experience in regulated or security-sensitive environments (e.g., healthcare, finance)

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.