Lead Software Engineer - Remote

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

Optum Tech is a global leader in health care innovation. Our teams develop cutting-edge solutions that help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. From advanced data analytics and AI to cybersecurity, we use innovative approaches to solve some of health care’s most complex challenges. Your contributions here have the potential to change lives.

Ready to build the next breakthrough? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer to join our UHC E&I Software Development team within Optum Tech UHC Technology to drive the design, architecture, and delivery of next-generation AI platforms and solutions. In this role, you will serve as a technical leader and strategic partner in advancing enterprise AI capabilities, with a focus on agentic systems, large language models (LLMs), and generative AI applications.

As part of our commitment to building an AI-first organization, you will design scalable platforms, enable reusable capabilities, and accelerate adoption of AI across products and teams. You will play a critical role in defining how AI is integrated into our systems, shaping long-term strategy while delivering high-impact solutions in production.

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.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Use enterprise-approved AI tools to streamline workflows, automate tasks, and drive continuous improvement
• Evaluate emerging trends and tools to inform solution design, evolve AI capabilities, and drive strategic innovation
• Lead the technical strategy, architecture, and execution of enterprise AI initiatives, with a focus on agentic systems and generative AI
• Design and implement scalable, secure, and production-grade AI platforms, including LLM-based applications, orchestration frameworks, and multi-agent systems
• Drive the end-to-end lifecycle of AI solutions, including ideation, prototyping, architecture, development, deployment, and continuous optimization
• Define and establish reference architectures, engineering standards, and best practices for AI platforms
• Serve as a subject matter expert in AI engineering, providing hands‑on leadership across technologies such as Lang Chain, Lang Graph, vector databases, and orchestration frameworks
• Partner with product, architecture, and business stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into AI-enabled solutions that deliver measurable value
• Lead and influence system design and architectural decisions for distributed, cloud-native, and microservices-based AI applications
• Establish and enforce AI governance and responsible AI practices, including model monitoring, observability, reliability, and risk mitigation
• Mentor and develop engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and modern software practices
• Build and promote reusable services, shared frameworks, and platform capabilities to scale AI adoption across teams

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 or 8+ years of equivalent software engineering experience
• 8+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in full-stack development,…