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.
Welcome to the Optum Health AI team! Our mission is to leverage cutting-edge AI technologies to transform healthcare operations, improve patient experience, and enhance scalability. This role focuses primarily on Voice AI-a high-visibility, key strategic initiative under Optum Health AI designed to create a seamless experience for members and agents, reduce manual work, and improve scalability.
As a Lead AI/ML Engineer, you will establish foundational capabilities such as language translation, accent harmonization, and real-time transcription. These advanced capabilities will cross-pollinate across all Optum Health AI pillars (including Provider Scheduling, Prior Authorization, Summarization, and more) while setting enterprise-wide standards for external vendor evaluations. Partnering closely with ECS Business, you will lead the estimates, solution architecture, roadmap alignment, and engineering to deliver production-ready prototypes that are reusable, scalable, secure, and compliant.
This position follows a hybrid schedule with four in-office days per week.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead and mentor AI/ML engineers, setting technical direction, engineering standards, and a culture of continuous learning
- Design, build, and deploy responsible Voice AI capabilities, including speech handling, enhanced ASR, bilingual switching, slurred speech recognition, dynamic personality, and multi-modal/multi-cloud interactions
- Translate AI advances in real-time transcription and speech processing into scalable, reusable, production-ready enterprise capabilities
- Partner with ECS Business to drive solution architecture, cost estimation, and roadmap alignment across modern and legacy technology stacks
- Embed ethical AI and HIPAA-compliant security standards across the model development lifecycle
- Implement advanced engineering features such as dynamic interactive forms, adaptive updates, and conditional logic to improve patient-agent workflows
- Define enterprise standards for evaluating and vetting external AI vendors
- Use enterprise-approved AI tools to automate workflows, accelerate delivery, and drive continuous improvement
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 degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field; 4+ years of software engineering experience may substitute for a degree
- 10+ years of software engineering experience, including designing, building, and deploying production-grade AI/ML models and systems
- 4+ years of experience developing applications leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), LLM workflows, Agentic AI, evaluation techniques, and observability platforms
- 3+ years of experience leading engineering teams, mentoring engineers, defining technical standards, and driving solution architecture
- Experience with Python, backend services, cloud platforms, and CI/CD pipelines to deliver scalable, secure, production-ready solutions
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master's or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field
- Technical experience with Databricks, Azure AI, Azure Transcription Services, RLlib, PyTorch, OpenAI, or similar AI/ML platforms and frameworks
- Experience developing with front-end frameworks, REST/WebSocket APIs, and secure cloud-native application patterns
- Experience working in healthcare, including EHR integration and HIPAA-compliant AI application development
- Deep machine learning domain knowledge across NLP, speech, personalization, recommendation systems, computer vision, or anomaly detection
- Demonstrated adaptability, ownership, learning agility, and curiosity in solving ambiguous, high-impact technical problems
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 $145,500 - $249,500 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.
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