Lead Software Engineer - Remote

UnitedHealth Group•Schaumburg, IL

2d•$112,700 - $193,200•Remote

About The Position

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. 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.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field or equivalent practical experience
10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated ownership of complex, production critical systems
5+ years leading development teams, delivering robust and safe solutions for enterprise systems
Proven experience delivering large-scale, high-volume transactional systems
Hands on experience designing and building cloud native applications deployed to Azure and/or AWS
Experience building and consuming APIs (REST, messaging, integration layers) supporting high volume transactional workloads
Demonstrated experience working on or integrating with pharmacy claims adjudication systems or similarly complex transaction processing platforms
Proven experience with Docker and Kubernetes (K8s), including containerized deployments, configuration, and runtime troubleshooting
Experience participating in cross team delivery efforts where missed deadlines introduce operational, financial, or compliance risk
Deep familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and secure SDLC practices expected in OptumRx Technology environments
Solid proficiency in Java and Spring / Spring Boot, delivering enterprise grade, production ready services.
Proven ability to implement changes driven by external standards or regulatory mandates, ensuring correctness, auditability, and system stability
Hands on experience with AI prompt engineering for software development, analysis, or automation use cases
Experience developing or applying agentic AI solutions to automate engineering workflows or accelerate delivery outcomes
Working knowledge of AI harness engineering concepts, including evaluation, regression, guardrails, and reliability considerations for AI assisted systems
Proven ability to integrate AI assisted solutions responsibly into enterprise engineering environments
Strong production ownership mindset, including: Troubleshooting and resolving complex issues, Root cause analysis, Implementing preventative improvements
Experience implementing observability (logging, metrics, alerts) aligned to mission critical system expectations
Commitment to secure coding, data protection, and privacy controls required in healthcare technology

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting healthcare, PBM, or claims processing platforms, with an understanding of high availability and regulatory sensitive systems used in pharmacy or payer environments
Experience supporting legacy modernization initiatives, especially decomposing monolithic or mainframe adjacent systems into service based architectures
Familiarity with NCPDP transaction standards (e.g., D.0 and/or vF6) or experience delivering large scale standards migrations
Experience operating in multi cloud environments (Azure + AWS) with an understanding of resiliency and cost considerations at scale
Knowledge of infrastructure as code and automated environment provisioning used in OptumRx platforms
Experience mentoring engineers and elevating technical quality across a team without formal people management responsibilities
Demonstrated ability to act as a technical leader or senior individual contributor, influencing architecture, design standards, and engineering best practices.
Proven ability to clearly communicate technical decisions, risks, and trade offs to both engineering and non engineering stakeholders
Experience designing repeatable, production safe AI agents for engineering or platform workflows.
Familiarity with applying AI tools to: Code modernisation, Standards analysis and mapping, Documentation and knowledge acceleration, Test generation or validation

Responsibilities

Lead design and delivery of modernized adjudication services, aligned to the program roadmap and target architecture
Responsible for upholding engineering best practices and implementing appropriate architectural designs to deliver safe and robust solutions
Build and enhance Java/Spring-based services and APIs supporting adjudication modernization initiatives
Decompose legacy capabilities into modular, testable, independently deployable components (where appropriate), improving maintainability and delivery velocity
Own end-to-end implementation for assigned modernization features: requirements clarification, technical design, build, test, release, and production support
Partner with product, architecture, and downstream platform teams to ensure modernized components integrate cleanly with existing claim processing flows
Implement robust observability (logs/metrics/traces), alerting, and SLO-focused engineering to improve reliability and operational readiness
Drive performance and scalability improvements for claim transaction workflows (latency, throughput, resiliency, failure isolation)
Establish and maintain technical documentation (designs, run-books, support procedures) for modernized services
Perform impact assessment and gap analysis from reverse engineering efforts
Drive cross-team technical coordination for delivery schedules, dependencies, and integration testing (internal and with partners/vendors, as applicable)
Provide technical guidance into stakeholder communications (engineering impacts, release readiness, implementation constraints, risks, mitigations) using approved internal guidance
Design, build, and operate cloud-native services on Azure and/or AWS, selecting appropriate managed services and patterns for reliability and cost
Package and deploy applications using Docker and Kubernetes (K8s), applying secure configuration, resource tuning, and rollout strategies
Build/maintain CI/CD pipelines for automated build, test, security scanning, and deployment across environments
Improve infrastructure and deployment automation (IaC practices where used by the team), reducing manual steps and increasing repeatability
Adoption of AI solutions in daily development workflow activities
Design and develop AI agents to automate/accelerate engineering and analysis tasks (e.g., code conversion, documentation, testing acceleration, migration support)
Apply AI prompt engineering and agentic AI patterns to create reliable task-oriented assistants with measurable outcomes
Be an AI champion within the team, encouraging and mentoring peers to leverage the power of AI to achieve solutions sooner
Build and maintain AI harness engineering capabilities (evaluation harnesses, regression suites, guardrails, telemetry) to ensure agent quality, safety, and repeatability
Integrate AI tooling into the developer workflow (CI hooks, PR checks, knowledge retrieval, standardized templates) to improve throughput and reduce defects
Establish operational controls for AI-enabled automation (access, logging, validation, fail-safes, human-in-the-loop where needed)
Champion engineering best practices: clean code, design reviews, automated testing (unit/integration/contract), and secure-by-design implementation
Diagnose and resolve complex production issues; perform root-cause analysis and implement preventative fixes
Ensure compliance with internal security, privacy, and SDLC controls (secrets management, vulnerability remediation, dependency hygiene)
Provide technical leadership for assigned initiatives: mentor engineers, unblock delivery, and raise the bar on engineering quality
Collaborate effectively across product, operations, architecture, and partner teams to deliver outcomes on schedule
Communicate progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly to stakeholders; escalate appropriately with mitigation options