Manager Data Science

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.    

This role leads a team comprising data analysts and data scientists, delivering healthcare‑focused insights, advanced analytics, and decision support. The Manager is accountable for people leadership, analytical rigor, and business impact across descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive use cases.

The role requires strong healthcare domain understanding, solid grounding in both analytics and data science methods, and the ability to guide teams from problem statement to decision - not just model output or dashboards.

Hands‑on contribution is expected for complex, high‑visibility, or ambiguous problems, but success is measured by team outcomes, not individual execution volume.

Primary Responsibilities:

• People Leadership & Team Management
  • Directly manage, coach, and mentor a mixed team of data analysts and data scientists
  • Conduct regular one‑on‑ones, performance reviews, and development planning aligned to role expectations and career paths
  • Set clear standards for analytical rigor, model quality, documentation, and professional conduct
  • Build a culture of collaboration, learning, and healthy challenge between analytics and data science roles
• Analytics & Data Science Delivery
  • Own day‑to‑day execution across reporting, deep‑dive analysis, and advanced analytics / modeling
  • Ensure the right approach is used for the problem - not over‑engineering with models or under‑analyzing with dashboards
  • Review and quality‑check dashboards, analyses, and model outputs for accuracy, interpretability, and business relevance
  • Ensure standardized metric definitions, modeling assumptions, and reproducible analytic processes
• Technical & Methodological Oversight
  • Provide guidance on feature design, analytical logic, and model selection, without acting as a full‑time IC
  • Serve as a hands‑on contributor for complex analyses, ambiguous business questions, or urgent leadership asks when required
  • Ensure models and analyses are interpretable, explainable, and appropriate for healthcare use cases
• Business & Healthcare Partnership
  • Work closely with healthcare business, clinical, risk, quality, or operations teams to frame the right questions
  • Translate analytics and models into concise, decision‑ready insights
  • Actively push back on low‑value, misaligned, or unclear requests and help refine them
• Process, Standards & Maturity
  • Improve analytic and data science workflows, productivity, and reuse
  • Partner with Directors and above to introduce new standards, tools, or frameworks
  • Promote knowledge sharing and best practices across analytics and data science teams
• 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 regards 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:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• 10+ years of experience across analytics, data science, or related roles
• 4+ years in people management roles
• Healthcare analytics or data science experience
• Proven experience managing mid‑ to senior‑level analytics and/or data science professionals
• Demonstrated experience working with healthcare data and business problems
• Solid understanding of:
  • Descriptive and diagnostic analytics
  • Predictive or advanced analytics techniques
  • Model evaluation, assumptions, and limitations
• Proven ability to review and challenge work across analytics and data science without doing daily coding
• Proven comfort balancing delivery pressure, rigor, and team development
• Proven solid decision‑making and prioritization skills
• Proven ability to connect analytics and models to real operational, financial, or clinical decisions
• Proven clear communication with non‑technical healthcare stakeholders

Preferred Qualification:

• Advanced degree (Analytics, Statistics, Economics, Data Science, Public Health, or similar)

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.