Senior AI/ML Engineer

Requisition Number: 2367375
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.
The Senior AI/ML Engineer is a highly skilled technical contributor responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing advanced AI and machine learning solutions. This role focuses on building scalable models and systems, ensuring high performance and reliability, while collaborating with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into innovative AI solutions.
Primary Responsibilities:

• AI/ML Solution Development: Design, implement, and optimize advanced AI and machine learning models, including statistical, deep learning, and generative AI models
• Model Training & Evaluation: Run proof-of-concepts, train models at scale, and baseline performance using evaluation metrics
• Platform & Infrastructure: Work on large-scale training and inference using platforms like Databricks, PySpark, and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Generative AI & Advanced Techniques: Apply techniques such as RAG, LangChain, and VectorDBs; optimize and quantize GenAI models for performance
• Software Engineering Practices: Develop APIs (REST, FAST), containerize solutions with Docker, and integrate UI tools like Streamlit or Flask
• Collaboration & Communication: Partner with cross-functional teams to understand business needs and translate them into AI solutions; present complex analytics clearly
• Mentorship & Team Culture: Mentor junior engineers, foster a collaborative environment, and uphold standards for safety, quality, and trust
• 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:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field.
• Experience:
  • 5+ years in software engineering with proven success designing and building high-quality, commercial applications
  • 2+ years in AI/ML engineering, including deploying models at scale and leading technical teams
  • 3+ years proficiency in Java, Python, R, SQL, and Linux shell scripting
  • 1+ years hands-on cloud experience in AWS, Azure, and GCP (especially AWS)
  • 1+ years experience with MongoDB, Databricks, PySpark/SparkSQL, and data pipeline implementation
  • Familiarity with Hadoop and MLOps practices
• Technical Skills:
  • Experience with MongoDB and relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server)
  • Expertise in AI/ML frameworks, orchestration tools, and scalable architectures
  • Solid knowledge of big data technologies (Spark, Hadoop, Kafka) and modern data platforms
  • Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
  • Proficient in Databricks (Delta Lake, Lakehouse architecture, Unity Catalog) and data governance
• Leadership & Collaboration:
  • Proven excellent leadership, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills
  • Ability to mentor engineers, lead technical reviews, and drive architectural decisions across cloud, AI/ML, and data domains
  • Solid foundation in data science principles: statistics, optimization, probability theory, simulation, and data modeling

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.