Sr. Director, AI/ML Engineering

UnitedHealth Group•Eden Prairie, MN

17h•Remote

About The Position

Optum Insight is improving the flow of health data and information to create a more connected system. We remove friction and drive alignment between care providers and payers, and ultimately consumers. Our deep expertise in the industry and innovative technology empower us to help organizations reduce costs while improving risk management, quality and revenue growth. Ready to help us deliver results that improve lives? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. Optum Insight partners with payers, providers, governments and life sciences companies to simplify and enhance clinical, administrative and financial processes through software-enabled services and analytics, while advancing value-based care. Our differentiated products, technology insights, clinical expertise and analytics support the entire health system — ultimately delivering better experiences for consumers. Optum Insight Technology and Engineering is a critical function in Optum Insight driving the innovation and value we provide our customers and partners. This team is focused on products, solutions, platform / enabling capability development, product development lifecycle, engineering excellence and connectivity to Optum Technology. In this enterprise-scale role, this person will help drive the AI strategy across the Optum Insights - Payer portfolio, ensuring cross-organizational alignment and disciplined execution from concept through commercialization. The person will partner closely with senior leaders across business, product, PIDI, and Operations to coordinate priorities, establish governance and reporting, and track outcomes against our transformation roadmap. Will also lead our AI narrative—how we communicate progress, value, and impact—internally and externally. The TPM team will report to this individual providing the program leadership, cadence, and cross-team coordination required to accelerate delivery and scale commercialization and rapid AI development.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience
10+ years of experience in technology leadership, with a focus on large-scale engineering or transformation initiatives
Experience with AI/ML engineering, including the implementation of Vector databases, RAG pipelines, and safety guardrails for LLM-driven applications
Proven experience leading and managing high-performing Technical Program Management (TPM) or engineering teams
Experience working with Databricks, Azure AI, or GCP cloud environments
Proven ability to partner with senior business and product leaders to translate business needs into technical execution roadmaps

Nice To Haves

Experience with OpenAI, PyTorch, and serverless architectures
Experience with React, CI/CD pipelines, and REST/WebSocket APIs
Experience in AI model commercialization and tracking ROI for AI initiatives
Deep understanding of the healthcare payer landscape and digital worker transformation
Proven track record of driving cross-organizational alignment in a matrixed enterprise environment

Responsibilities

Partner closely with Optum Retail and Product leaders to define and execute an AI strategy that optimizes the product portfolio, accelerates modernization, and seamlessly integrates technology and services to deliver customer value
Drive consistency and alignment in AI capability development across the Payer organization, including the integration of Generative AI and NLP solutions for clinical document processing and payer-focused use cases
Collaborate with Data Science teams to expand and scale advanced AI capabilities across the organization
Lead the design and implementation of safe, scalable LLM-driven applications, including vector databases, RAG pipelines, and governance guardrails
Oversee and leverage modern AI and engineering technologies such as Databricks, Azure AI, PyTorch, OpenAI, GCP, backend frameworks (Node.js, Next.js, Java), serverless architectures, React, CI/CD pipelines, REST/WebSockets APIs, and database platforms