Principal Architect - Remote

UnitedHealth Group•Minnetonka, MN

7h•Remote

About The Position

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. UHC Technology is focused on driving change, modernization, and ensuring reliable and stable systems so that we can help to transform health care - making it easier, more affordable, and more effective for those we serve. We are passionate about technology and the role it plays to create distinctive experiences to our constituents. While we are always focused on how technology can help us deliver faster and with improved quality, we are far more enthusiastic about the ways technology can reinvent how we deliver on our mission in partnership with the UHC lines of business and Optum Technology. The Principal Architect is a senior level technical leader responsible for defining, governing, and advancing enterprise level architecture for Payment Integrity and adjacent platforms. This position emphasizes deep technical authority, architecture strategy, standards governance, and cross organizational technical leadership. You will partner with engineering, product, data, clinical, and business stakeholders to align technology direction with enterprise objectives, modernize core platforms, and ensure scalable, secure, and future ready systems. Your impact spans solution architecture, platform strategy, AI/ML enablement, engineering excellence, and enterprise adoption. 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. 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.

Requirements

5+ years of technical leadership experience, influencing multiple engineering teams toward consistent architectural standards and platform direction
Demonstrated experience leading architecture for large scale, enterprise systems (serving multiple business units, managing high volume transactions, or spanning multi team delivery)
Demonstrated hands‑on technical depth designing distributed systems, integrations, and cloud‑native architectures across multi‑team environments
Cloud architecture proficiency in Azure, AWS, or GCP, with experience designing or migrating at least one production‑grade system
Proven experience driving technical change initiatives such as modernization, simplification, platform rationalization, or introducing new architectural patterns
Solid cross‑functional partnership experience working with business, product, analytics, or clinical leaders to align architecture with business strategy
Demonstrated ability to evaluate and guide adoption of emerging technologies including AI/ML, automation, or next-generation platform capabilities
Proven solid communication and influence skills, with a record of aligning senior stakeholders and mentoring architects or senior engineers

Nice To Haves

Experience working in or supporting Payment Integrity, healthcare claims, provider data, or related healthcare domains, ideally across multiple platforms or functions
Experience leading or contributing to enterprise architecture governance, including review boards, standards development, or platform roadmapping
Experience driving or supporting modernization of legacy systems, including cloud migration, application rationalization, or platform consolidation efforts
Experience aligning architectural direction across global engineering teams (India + U.S. or similar distributed model)
Experience implementing or advising on AI‑enabled capabilities—LLMs, automation, RAG, intelligent routing, or AI‑assisted engineering patterns

Responsibilities

Serve as the senior technical authority for architecture across Payment Integrity; define architecture vision, principles, patterns, and reference architecture
Drive long range planning to align application and technology portfolios with business objectives
Lead end to end architecture for platforms supporting claims, provider, eligibility, analytics, and modernization initiatives
Evaluate solution options, integration patterns, cloud architectures, and modernization strategies
Provide oversight for domain level architectures and ensure alignment with enterprise standards
Assess and guide adoption of emerging AI/ML, automation, and LLM based technologies in alignment with enterprise approved tools
Architect capabilities that support fraud/waste/abuse detection and enterprise payment integrity strategy
Collaborate with senior engineering, product, clinical, analytics, and business stakeholders to translate needs into architectural direction
Serve as the senior architecture point of contact across engineering, business, and operations teams
Establish and enforce architecture governance, standards, patterns, roadmaps, and EA review boards
Ensure compliance with internal policies, security guidelines, and industry standards (FHIR, CQL, CDS, HIPAA, terminology standards)
Produce detailed architecture artifacts such as sequence diagrams, systems models, and data flows
Lead proofs of concept, prototypes, and reference implementations
Provide deep technical guidance to architects, engineers, and cross functional teams
Mentor solution architects and engineering leaders; uplift architecture maturity and technical excellence
Function as a thought leader within the architecture community and represent the ARC job family in strategic initiatives