Advisory Services Consultant, Consultant Development Program - AI/ML Engineering Track - Multiple Locations
About The Position
The Consultant Development Program (CDP) is an early-careers program within Optum Advisory that places participants in real consulting work with health care clients. Participants receive structured consulting and healthcare training, mentorship, and experience across multiple client engagements while developing skills in strategic problem solving, data-driven decision making, client relationship management, change management, AI-enabled consulting, and healthcare industry expertise. Program completion includes alignment into an Optum Advisory practice and typically takes 1.5–2.5 years. The AI/ML Engineering track combines the consulting foundation with hands-on work building AI/ML solutions, including LLM applications, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and early agentic AI workflows. Consultants work alongside Optum.ai engineering and data science teams to translate client needs into technical solutions. The full-time role is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota; Nashville, Tennessee; or Washington, D.C., with a hybrid schedule requiring three days in the office. The position is available starting in 2027. Relocation is not offered, and visa sponsorship is unavailable now or in the future. The role supports health care clients through strategic transformation and technology-enabled problem solving. Work may include developing and evaluating AI/ML applications, integrating AI into client workflows, presenting technical recommendations, applying responsible-AI and healthcare data protections, and preparing solutions for transition to production engineering teams. Travel may be required up to 50%, depending on project needs and location.
Requirements
- At least 2 years of experience through graduate research, internships, fellowships, postdoctoral work, or professional roles in ML, AI engineering, or applied data science.
- At least 2 years of experience developing Python-based ML/AI solutions.
- At least 1 year of experience building Generative AI or LLM applications.
- Experience taking an ML/AI project from problem definition through development and evaluation.
- Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or similar.
- Ability to work in-office on a hybrid schedule, three days per week, in Eden Prairie, MN; Nashville, TN; or Washington, D.C., for the duration of the program.
- Ability to travel up to 50%, depending on project needs and location.
- Must be eligible to work in the U.S. without company sponsorship now or in the future; candidates requiring employment-based sponsorship are not considered.
Nice To Haves
- GPA of 3.0.
- At least 1 year of experience with RAG, vector search, or similar retrieval-based AI approaches.
- Healthcare experience.
- Experience with LLM orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Semantic Kernel.
- Experience building or contributing to agentic AI systems, including tool-calling, planning frameworks, or multi-agent workflows.
- Experience optimizing LLM latency, cost, and performance in production environments.
- Experience deploying AI systems on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
- Experience working in regulated environments with responsible AI governance requirements.
- Proven intellectual curiosity.
Responsibilities
- Enable strategic business transformation by applying technology, AI, process improvement, and innovation to complex client problems.
- Apply AI tools in client workflows such as research, analysis, reporting, dashboards, and automation, and build and optimize prompts.
- Lead selected client-facing interactions and presentations, communicate technical recommendations and trade-offs, and build client relationships during project delivery.
- Own defined AI/ML workstreams, including requirements analysis, solution development, evaluation, and communication of results.
- Develop and fine-tune LLM-based applications, including prompt engineering and API integration with commercial and open-source models.
- Design and implement RAG pipelines and agentic AI workflows, including document ingestion, chunking, embeddings, vector search, tool use, reasoning, and planning patterns.
- Test, evaluate, and refine AI/ML solutions for accuracy, safety, and performance, including hallucination detection, bias monitoring, and human-in-the-loop evaluation.
- Prepare solutions for production using testing, CI/CD, and monitoring practices, and support transition to Optum or client production engineering teams.
- Apply responsible-AI and healthcare data considerations, including PHI/PII protection, privacy and regulatory requirements, and governance guardrails.
- Partner with Optum.ai engineering, data science, and product teams to translate client requirements into technical AI/ML solution components and communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs to stakeholders.
- Analyze data using AI-enabled tools and generate insights.
- Collaborate with teams to identify opportunities for AI-driven improvements and ensure responsible, compliant use of AI solutions.
Benefits
- Comprehensive benefits package, subject to eligibility requirements.
- Incentive and recognition programs.
- Equity stock purchase plan.
- 401(k) contribution.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
