VP AI ML Engineering, Medicare & Retirement

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 Vice President of AI/ML Engineering for Medicare & Retirement (M&R) is responsible for driving AI-first engineering transformation across the portfolio, enabling scalable, production-grade AI capabilities that power growth, cost optimization, and operational efficiency for Medicare Advantage and Dual Eligible Special Needs Plan (DSNP) businesses.

This leader translates complex healthcare business challenges-such as benefit design, clinical operations, member engagement, and sales optimization-into deployable AI solutions, platforms, and products. The role will lead enterprise AI/ML engineering at scale, embedding AI across plan design, digital experiences, and operational workflows.

The impact of this role is direct and measurable: driving revenue growth and retention, increasing market responsiveness, strengthening resiliency and compliance, and reducing cost to serve through AI first modernization, platform reuse, and operational excellence-while modeling UnitedHealth Group values of Integrity, Quality, Inclusion, Compassion, Relationships, Innovation, and Performance.

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:

AI Strategy & Portfolio Transformation

• Define and execute an enterprise AI/ML strategy aligned to M&R business priorities and growth objectives 
• Embed AI across core value streams: benefit design, member lifecycle, and clinical operations
• Drive transition from experimentation to scaled, production-grade AI across the portfolio

AI/ML Platform & Engineering Leadership

• Build and scale enterprise AI/ML platforms supporting model development, deployment, and monitoring 
• Enable real-time decisioning and batch analytics at scale 
• Standardize MLOps, AI pipelines, and engineering delivery practices 
• Drive reusable AI services and shared capabilities across the enterprise 
• Accelerate adoption of GenAI, LLMs, and agent-based systems where appropriate

Business Alignment & Value Delivery

• Partner with Product, Business (M&R leadership), and Finance to prioritize high-value AI use cases 
• Align AI investments to measurable ROI outcomes across growth, clinical, and operational domains
• Translate business problems (pricing, engagement, operations) into deployable AI solutions 
• Scale pilots into enterprise-grade platforms

Engineering Execution & Operational Excellence

• Lead delivery of production-grade AI systems with high reliability, scalability, and compliance 
• Establish best practices for model validation, testing, and monitoring 
• Optimize performance and cost efficiency across AI workloads and infrastructure 
• Embed AI into SDLC and operational workflows as a standard engineering capability

AI, Automation & Healthcare Impact (M&R-Specific Outcomes)

• Lead AI/ML engineering across the M&R portfolio, enabling: 
  • Benefit design optimization
  • Ancillary benefit optimization and validation
  • DSNP and food benefit innovation
  • Clinical and Medicare STARS automation
• Deliver measurable outcomes including: 
  • Revenue growth and marketing effectiveness
  • Medical cost optimization and risk adjustment
  • Cost-to-serve reduction through automation
  • Improved Medicare STARS quality performance

Responsible AI, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure AI solutions comply with healthcare regulations and data privacy standards
• Establish responsible AI practices including fairness, explainability, and auditability 
• Partner with security and risk teams to govern models and manage lifecycle risk

AI Transformation Leadership

• Lead the AI Blueprint transformation for M&R Technology, converting enterprise AI priorities into a clear roadmap, governance model, and execution plan
• Align AI priorities and investments to measurable business value
• Drive scaled adoption of AI-first engineering practices, including AIDLC, reusable AI capabilities, responsible AI controls, and enterprise tooling
• Advance the M&R AI talent and workforce strategy through role-based enablement, adoption metrics, and operating model changes that build sustained AI capability
• Monitor transformation progress, risks, dependencies, and outcomes through executive reporting tied to value, adoption, delivery, and responsible AI performance

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:

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in senior engineering leadership roles
• Proven track record modernizing large scale legacy platforms and establishing AI enabled, cloud native architectures
• Employ AI and/or ML that may include natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), semantic understanding, intent classification, computer vision, deep learning, and automatic speech recognition (ASR)
• Work with large scale computing frameworks and data analysis systems. Employees in this role are expected to apply knowledge of experimental methodologies, statistics, optimization, probability theory and machine learning using code for tool building, statistical analysis, using both general purpose software and statistical languages 
• Demonstrated success leading matrixed, globally distributed engineering teams
• Deep expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), microservices, APIs, DevOps, application security, and modern SDLC and AI-SDLC practices
• Hands on leadership integrating AI/ML and GenAI capabilities into production platforms and developer workflows
• Exceptional communication, influencing, and executive stakeholder management skills
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field

Preferred Qualifications:  

• Product oriented engineering leader with strong focus on platform reuse, developer experience, and AI enabled productivity
• Experience leading AI first transformation initiatives, including cloud migration, platform consolidation, and intelligent automation
• Proven experience deploying AI/ML Models at scale across Payers / Providers / Healthcare ecosystem OR similarly regulated industries
• Knowledge of Quantum computing

*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 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.