Senior Data Engineer

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.

A Senior Data Engineer at Optum Technology is responsible for designing, building, and operating scalable, secure, and high‑quality data platforms that enable analytics, reporting, AI/ML, and business decision‑making. The role emphasizes cloud-native data engineering, strong data quality and governance, and close collaboration with product, analytics, and platform teams.

You will enjoy the flexibility to telecommute
* from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges.

Primary Responsibilities:

* Design, build, and operate scalable ETL/ELT pipelines for structured and semi‑structured data across internal and external sources

* Develop cloud‑native data solutions on modern data platforms (e.g., Databricks lakehouse, Snowflake)

* Apply data modeling, transformations, and enrichment to produce trusted, analytics‑ready datasets

* Ensure data quality, reliability, and auditability through validation, reconciliation, and monitoring

* Implement and follow enterprise data governance, security, and compliance standards

* Optimize data workloads for performance, cost efficiency, and operational reliability

* Support modernization efforts, including migration of legacy ETL pipelines to cloud‑native architectures

* Partner with product, analytics, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into production‑grade data solutions

* Enable downstream analytics, reporting, and AI/ML workloads through well‑designed data assets

* Apply software engineering best practices, including CI/CD, version control, testing, and code reviews

* Contribute to architectural discussions and mentor junior engineers.

* Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered solutions to address complex business challenges with emphasis on responsible use of AI

You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear directions 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 related field

* 6+ years of experience as a Data Engineer or in data platform / analytics engineering roles

* 5+ years of experience with SQL, data modeling, and data transformations

* 5+ years of hands‑on experience with Databricks and/or Snowflake and large‑scale data processing

* 5+ years of experience building ETL/ELT pipelines, data warehouses, and analytical data stores

* 5+ years of experience with source control and Dev Ops practices (Azure Dev Ops, Git Hub, CI/CD)

Preferred Qualifications:

* Working knowledge of cloud architecture, scalability, and fault‑tolerant design

* Familiarity with data quality frameworks and enterprise data ecosystems

* Experience with lakehouse patterns (e.g., medallion/Bronze‑Silver‑Gold architectures)

* Proficiency in Spark and Python for data engineering workloads

* Experience with data governance, metadata, and lineage tools

* Exposure to AI/ML or advanced analytics enablement through curated data assets

* Experience migrating legacy data platforms to modern cloud environments

* Prior experience mentoring engineers or contributing to engineering standards and best practices

Behavioral Expectations:

* Demonstrates technology acumen and stays current with industry trends

* Operates with ownership, accountability, and operational rigor

* Balances speed with quality, security, and resilience

* Actively contributes to continuous improvement and engineering standards

* All Telecommuters will be required to adhere to United Health Group's Telecommuter Policy.

Pay is based on several…