AI Architect - Enterprise AI & Generative AI Platforms - Multiple locations; Remote

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.

We are seeking a highly skilled and hands-on AI Architect to lead the design, development, and implementation of enterprise-scale AI and Generative AI solutions. This role requires deep technical expertise across AI/ML architectures, cloud-native platforms, data engineering, APIs, integration patterns, and modern software engineering practices.

The ideal candidate combines strategic architecture leadership with strong hands-on engineering capabilities and can guide teams from ideation through production deployment of AI-driven solutions.

The AI Architect will collaborate with product, engineering, security, platform, and business stakeholders to build scalable, secure, compliant, and responsible AI ecosystems.

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 Architecture & Solution Design:

• Design enterprise-grade AI/ML and Generative AI architectures aligned with business and technology strategies
• Define scalable patterns for: 
  • LLM integration
  • RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
  • Agentic AI workflows
  • AI orchestration frameworks
  • Vector databases
  • AI gateways
  • Model serving and inference
• Architect multi-cloud AI solutions across Azure, AWS, and GCP
• Define AI platform standards, reusable components, and reference architectures

Hands-on Engineering:

• Build production-ready AI services and APIs using Python, Java, or Node.js.
• Develop and optimize: 
  • Prompt engineering frameworks
  • AI agents
  • Semantic search pipelines
  • Embedding workflows
  • Fine-tuning pipelines
• Implement integrations with enterprise systems using APIs, event-driven architectures, and streaming technologies
• Work directly with engineering teams on coding, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and deployment automation

Generative AI & LLM Engineering:

• Evaluate and implement enterprise LLM solutions including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and open-source models
• Design secure and compliant GenAI architectures with guardrails, governance, and observability
• Implement: 
  • RAG pipelines
  • Vector search
  • Knowledge grounding
  • AI evaluation frameworks
  • Hallucination mitigation strategies
• Establish responsible AI practices including explainability, privacy, and bias mitigation

Cloud & Platform Engineering:

• Design AI infrastructure on Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Vertex AI, Kubernetes, and container platforms
• Build CI/CD pipelines for ML and AI workloads
• Implement MLOps and LLMOps practices for model lifecycle management
• Drive infrastructure automation using Terraform, Helm, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps

Data & Integration:

• Collaborate with data engineering teams to build scalable AI data pipelines
• Design event-driven and streaming architectures using Kafka and modern integration frameworks
• Ensure interoperability and API-first design principles across platforms

Governance & Leadership:

• Define enterprise AI standards, policies, and architecture governance
• Mentor engineers and architects on AI best practices
• Conduct architecture reviews and technology evaluations
• Partner with security and compliance teams to ensure adherence to enterprise standards

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:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, AI, Data Science, or related field
• 10+ years of software engineering/architecture experience
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML or Generative AI implementation
• Solid expertise in: 
  • Python
  • APIs & microservices
  • Cloud-native architectures
  • Kubernetes & containers
  • AI/ML frameworks
• Experience deploying enterprise solutions in production environments

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in healthcare, finance, or regulated industries
• Familiarity with FHIR, HL7, or healthcare interoperability standards
• Experience with enterprise API governance and streaming platforms
• Knowledge of responsible AI frameworks and AI security controls
• AI/Cloud certifications
• Solid communication and stakeholder management
• Ability to influence executive and engineering leadership
• Solid problem-solving and architecture decision-making skills
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution

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 $112,700 to $193,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

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.