Lead Software Engineer

Improve the lives of others while Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

Job Description - Lead Software Engineer (2374549)

Lead Software Engineer - 2374549

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, and data they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, 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.

As a Lead Software Engineer on our technology team, you will drive operational excellence, platform reliability, and system performance across high-consequence enterprise applications. In this technical leadership role, you will serve as a Site Leadership Owner (SLO), orchestrating release management, incident response, and Disaster Recovery while designing, developing, and deploying enterprise-scale software and AI-powered solutions. You will collaborate across Development, Operations, Dev Ops, and Security teams to modernize legacy systems, automate workflows, and ensure the highest standards of availability, security, and scalability.

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

Primary Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and deploy enterprise-scale software solutions and AI-powered platform automations to address complex operational and business challenges with emphasis on responsible AI use
• Leverage enterprise-approved AI tools to automate deployment tasks, streamline incident response workflows, and drive continuous system optimization
• Lead production war rooms for critical P1 and P2 incidents, driving rapid service restoration, comprehensive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) publishing, and leadership presentations
• Coordinate end-to-end release activities, including change ticket management, deployment planning, execution, and approval follow-ups
• Evaluate emerging technical trends and AI solutions to inform architecture design, platform modernization, and legacy-to-cloud transformations
• Plan and execute Stage and Production Disaster Recovery (DR) exercises, business continuity failover plans, and system availability strategies
• Collaborate with Dev and Dev Ops teams to perform automated security scans, remediate application vulnerabilities, and coordinate product lifecycle management (PLM) activities
• Manage message streaming platforms (e.g., Kafka topic onboarding and data pipeline mappings) and oversee vendor partner service requests
• Participate in and lead Site Leadership Owner (SLO) governance meetings, operational discussions, and periodic health reviews

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:

• 10+ years with expertise in Java, RESTful APIs, and microservices architectures
• 2+ years of experience leading engineering teams, technical initiatives, platform ownership functions, or site operational leadership (SLO)
• 2+ years of experience managing production support operations, leading P1/P2 war rooms, managing change approval workflows, and conducting Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
• 2+ years of experience with database design, tuning, and troubleshooting (SQL Server) and cloud platforms (Azure preferred)
• 1+ years of experience designing, developing, or deploying AI-powered tools, automations, or…