Senior AI/ML Engineer - Remote

UnitedHealth Group•Irvine, CA

3d•$91,700 - $163,700•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. Optum AI is UnitedHealth Group's enterprise AI team. We are AI/ML scientists and engineers with deep expertise in AI/ML engineering for health care. We develop AI/ML solutions for the highest impact opportunities across UnitedHealth Group businesses including UnitedHealthcare, Optum Financial, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. We are seeking a self-motivated and proactive individual to drive the development and implementation of AI-based tools and workflows. You will collaborate closely with research, engineering, and product teams to translate cutting-edge AI advancements into production-ready capabilities. The ideal candidate consistently seeks opportunities to enhance system performance and contribute to organizational objectives, while upholding ethical AI principles by embedding fairness, transparency, and accountability throughout the model development lifecycle. 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

Graduate degree in computer Science or similar fields
4+ years of hands-on experience in AI/ML, with a solid focus on natural language processing (NLP) and Language Models
3+ years of experience with libraries such as Langchain, OpenAI API, Hugging Face Transformers, or similar tools for finetuning and integrating LLMs
Experience with agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, AutoGen, Bedrock, or Vertex AI, demonstrated by contributing to projects involving the design of modular and scalable AI agents

Nice To Haves

Experience deploying agentic systems in production environments, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance
Experience with RL training for language models
Experience working on collaborative software projects using GitHub
Proven ability to engage in AI/ML research, evidenced by peer-reviewed publications or technical reports, and by incorporating recent advances in NLP and agentic frameworks into product-led projects

Responsibilities

Design and implement AI systems for conversational search in medical content
Evaluate, debug, and improve conversational AI to ensure accuracy and efficiency
Monitor and optimize system performance for latency, cost, and reliability
Explore and apply reinforcement learning and self-improving techniques
Collaborate and communicate effectively with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to deliver scalable solutions
Ensure responsible and ethical AI practices throughout all stages of development
Stay up-to-date with advances in AI/ML and actively contribute ideas, research, or solutions to improve team and product capabilities
Collaborate with research, engineering, and product teams to translate cutting-edge AI advancements into production-ready capabilities. Uphold ethical AI principles by embedding fairness, transparency, and accountability throughout the model development lifecycle