Lead Software 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 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.

Optum AI is United Health Group's enterprise AI team. We are AI/ML scientists and engineers who build and operationalize AI capabilities across payer, provider, and pharmacy businesses, with a focus on safe, scalable, and production grade solutions.

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will be a hands on technical leader for AI driven products, owning the design and delivery of end to end systems that span modern front end experiences, cloud native services, and AI/ML integrations. You'll partner closely with Product, Data, Security, and Platform teams to turn ambitious ideas into resilient, production ready software.

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.

• Technical Execution & System Design
  • Design, build, and evolve end to end full stack systems spanning front end applications, backend services, APIs, and integrations
  • Drive and contribute to architectural decisions around scalability, reliability, performance, and security in distributed systems
  • Apply and uphold engineering standards, patterns, and best practices through design reviews, code reviews, and technical collaboration
  • Work closely with Product, Data, Security, and Platform partners to translate requirements into well designed technical solutions
• Application & Platform Development
  • Develop modern front end applications using React or Angular with Type Script, with emphasis on usability, accessibility, and performance
  • Build and maintain backend services and APIs using Python (FastAPI), Node.js, or equivalent modern frameworks, following RESTful and event driven patterns
  • Implement asynchronous processing, event driven workflows, and API versioning strategies as part of production systems
  • Contribute to and evolve cloud native, microservices based architectures running in public cloud environments
• AI / ML Integration
  • Implement and integrate AI/ML capabilities into applications, including model inference APIs and data driven workflows
  • Make informed trade offs between real time vs. batch processing, latency, throughput, and scalability for AI enhanced features
  • Partner with Data Science and ML Engineering teams to operationalize AI features from prototype to production
• Security, Identity & Compliance
  • Build secure applications with strong attention to authentication, authorization, data protection, and secrets management
  • Implement identity and access patterns such as OAuth2, RBAC, and token based session management
  • Ensure systems include appropriate logging, observability, and auditability aligned with enterprise and regulatory expectations (e.g., HIPAA aligned controls, where applicable)
• Dev Ops & Operational Excellence
  • Contribute directly to CI/CD pipelines and Dev Ops workflows that support rapid, reliable delivery
  • Build and deploy containerized applications (e.g., Docker) using modern deployment pipelines and cloud native services
  • Monitor and improve system performance, reliability, and resilience to meet defined service level objectives (SLOs)
  • Use observability tools (logs, metrics, traces, dashboards) to understand and improve system behavior in production
• Technical Leadership (Non Managerial)
  • Own and drive technical direction for complex initiatives, influencing architecture and design across multiple services or domains without formal people management responsibility
  • Serve as a technical lead on critical projects: coordinate work across engineers, identify dependencies, and ensure cohesive system design and delivery
  • Set and socialize technical standards and patterns for the team (e.g., reference architectures, code quality practices, testing strategies)
  • Act as a primary technical escalation point for complex system behavior, production incidents, and architectural tradeoffs-driving root cause analysis and long term remediation
  • Mentor mid and senior level engineers through design reviews, pair programming, and collaborative problem solving

• Front End
  • React or Angular
  • Type Script
  • State management and performance optimization for data heavy UIs
• Backend & APIs
  • Python (FastAPI), Node.js or equivalent modern frameworks
  • RESTful APIs, asynchronous and event driven workflows
  • API versioning practices
• Cloud & Containerization
  • Public cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
  • Docker and…