Lead AI Software Engineer - Remote

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

Job Description
- Lead AI Software Engineer
- Remote (2386395)

Lead AI Software Engineer
- Remote - 2386395

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 in making healthcare work better for everyone through people-led, responsible AI while Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

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.

Lead AI/ML adoption for the team — designing, developing, testing, deploying, and maintaining AI-powered solutions that combine Generative AI and traditional ML techniques

Provide technical leadership for AI initiatives (e.g., conversational AI/chatbots, predictive analytics, intelligent automation), partnering with product management, architecture, and engineering leadership to solve healthcare-specific challenges

Build responsible AI solutions and services for the Provider community, ensuring compliance with ethical and regulatory standards, and lead AI governance, model lifecycle management, and production support

Evaluate and leverage emerging cloud AI/ML offerings to deliver efficient, cost-effective solutions, including integrating AI into broader cloud modernization and digital-first initiatives

Drive alignment between AI initiatives and enterprise strategy, independently prioritizing and planning work against business objectives

Own the quality and operational excellence of AI software deliverables in production

Mentor and train team members on AI/ML technologies, frameworks, and responsible AI practices

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.

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience

12+ years of software engineering experience, including 4+ years focused on AI/ML engineering

4+ years delivering enterprise-scale AI, ML, Data, or Cloud platforms in production

3+ years in a technical leadership role — setting technical direction, leading engineering teams, and mentoring engineers (formal people-management experience is a plus, not a requirement)

Hands-on experience with Generative AI, including 3+ years with LLMs, NLP, and AI architecture, and 2+ years of applied experience with agentic AI patterns, RAG, and AI orchestration/automation frameworks

Experience with cloud-native AI/ML services and infrastructure across major providers — e.g., managed GenAI/ML platforms (AWS Bedrock/Sage Maker, Azure OpenAI Service/Azure ML, GCP Vertex AI), serverless compute (Lambda/Azure Functions/Cloud Functions), container orchestration (ECS/EKS, AKS, GKE), managed search/vector stores (Open Search, Azure AI Search, Elasticsearch), and object storage (S3, Blob Storage, Cloud Storage)

Experience with AI governance, model lifecycle management, and production operationalization/support processes

Strong Python development skills and familiarity with…