Director, Technology

Optum Tech is a global leader in health care innovation. Our teams develop cutting-edge solutions that help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. From advanced data analytics and AI to cybersecurity, we use innovative approaches to solve some of health care's most complex challenges. Your contributions here have the potential to change lives. Ready to build the next breakthrough? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

The Director, UHCT Capital & Benefits Governance & Workforce Strategy serves as the single accountable owner for UHCT capital management, workforce strategy, and benefits financial integrity, operating at the intersection of finance, workforce planning, and executive decision support. It translates inputs from CDM, TRAITS, Finance, and hiring plans into a clear, defensible enterprise position, reconciling differences across systems and aligning tradeoffs among funding, timing, and capacity. Representing UHCT in governance forums, the role documents approvals, offsets, and capacity implications before escalation. With an enterprise view across capital and AI investments, this leader connects decisions across domains, surfaces risks early, and ensures staffing, capital allocation, and benefits performance are aligned to support timely, high-quality decisions across UHCT and Optum Technology.

Primary Responsibilities:

Capital Planning & Investment Alignment

• Own the enterprise view of total capital and spend, including forecast, run rate, and expected year-end outcomes
• Establish and maintain a clear, CIO-aligned opinion on capital deployment, including prioritization and tradeoffs
• Partner with CIO leadership and finance to ensure capital allocation aligns to strategic priorities and delivery capacity
• Track and manage AI MBR-approved investments, ensuring:
  • Clear visibility to incremental demand
  • Identified offsets against underruns
  • Alignment between approved investment and staffing plans
• Partner closely with Finance to:
  • Align on expected underruns
  • Track newly approved initiatives
  • Maintain a continuous forward-looking capital outlook

Benefits Financial Governance & Narrative

• Own reconciliation across CDM, TRAITS, and Finance-reported benefit financials, ensuring a single, trusted view of the numbers
• Identify, investigate, and resolve discrepancies across systems, establishing clear reconciliations and auditability
• Develop a month-over-month understanding of benefits performance, including drivers of change and emerging risks
• Translate financials into an executive-level narrative, moving beyond reporting to:
  • Explain why numbers are changing
  • Highlight implications to the business
  • Provide a forward-looking perspective
• Align closely with Finance to ensure consistency, accuracy, and credibility in all reported metrics and messaging

Workforce Strategy & Governance

• Serve as the single accountable owner representing UHCT in workforce governance forums, ensuring alignment to funding, strategy, and delivery priorities
• Own end-to-end requisition governance, including intake, validation, justification, and executive-ready materials
• Develop and articulate a holistic workforce "position", integrating data, leadership input, and delivery realities
• Act as trusted advisor to CIOs, providing insight on tradeoffs, risks, and workforce implications of business decisions

Executive Reporting & Decision Support

• Own the financial and workforce narrative for executive reporting (e.g., MBR, QBR, month-end close). 
• Provide decision-ready insights to CIOs and senior leaders, including risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations
• Serve as the connective layer between data, finance, and delivery, ensuring leaders have a clear, unified view of performance

Core Competencies

• Act as the central coordination point across Technology, Finance, People, Talent Acquisition, and external governance bodies
• Resolve discrepancies across systems, assumptions, and stakeholder perspectives before escalation
• Ensure consistent representation of UHCT workforce, capital, and financial position across all forums
• Apply an enterprise mindset to connect decisions across teams and functions
• Exercise judgment and accountability as the trusted owner of a single, defensible position
• Demonstrate executive presence through clear, confident communication with senior leaders
• Translate data into insight and action through effective storytelling
• Anticipate risks and resolve issues early through proactive problem solving

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:

• 10+ years of experience in strategy, finance, workforce planning, or technology operations
• Experience working with senior leadership (CIO/CTO level) to influence decisions
• Proven experience operating in highly matrixed, enterprise environments
• Solid financial acumen with experience in capital planning, forecasting, and reconciliation
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex data into executive-level insights and narratives
• Demonstrated exceptional analytical, communication, and stakeholder management skills

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 $134,600 to $230,800 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 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.