Sr AI/ML Engineer – 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 talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

This role will enable autonomous medical coding in a SaaS platform by integrating machine learning and LLMs.  Working closely with data scientists and software engineers through data extraction, research, training, and deployment to create a scalable production solution that can handle millions of medical charts daily.  You will work with cutting edge models, LLM, software, and tools in a fast paced environment.

You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Ship production ML systems end-to-end: problem framing, data discovery, feature engineering, training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration
• Design robust ML system architectures with low-latency inference and high availability
• Build and maintain reliable data and model pipelines using modern MLOps practices (CI/CD for ML, model registries, experiment tracking, automated retraining)
• Contribute to technical scoping and break down complex initiatives into executable roadmaps; drive execution across cross-functional partners
• Establish evaluation strategies: metrics, simulation, counterfactuals, and A/B tests; quantify impact and ensure statistical rigor
• Implement model observability and governance: drift detection, performance monitoring, fairness/bias assessments, and model documentation
• Collaborate closely with product, design, data, and platform teams to translate product goals into ML opportunities and measurable outcomes
• Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered solutions using no-code, low-code, and advanced platforms, translating business needs into scalable applications that enhance products, workflows and decision-making

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:

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, or related field, or 4+ years of equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of industry experience building and operating ML systems in production (or equivalent depth), with a track record of shipped impact

• 3+ years of Azure experience

   

Preferred Qualifications:

• Domain experience in recommendations, ranking, time-series forecasting, optimization, or reinforcement learning
• Solid software engineering skills: C#/Python, production-quality code, testing, code reviews, and performance profiling
• Solid ML/statistics fundamentals: supervised learning, evaluation methodology, feature engineering, bias/variance tradeoffs; deep learning or gradient boosting experience
• Excellent communication and product sense; able to translate business needs into technical plans and explain tradeoffs to non-ML stakeholders
• Privacy, security, and responsible AI practices (GDPR/CCPA, PII handling, fairness)
• Open-source contributions, publications, or patents
• LLMOps experience: prompt engineering, fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, model evaluation, safety/guardrails
• MLOps expertise: CI/CD for ML, containers, Kubernetes, model registries, reproducibility, and model monitoring
• Experimentation expertise: design/analysis of A/B tests, power analysis, guardrails, and causal inference basics

*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 $89,900 to $160,600 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.