Director, AI/ML Engineering - Remote

Requisition Number: 2343534
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. In addition to transforming the health care journey through responsible AI/ML innovation, our charter also includes developing and supporting an enterprise AI/ML development platform.
Optum AI team members:

• Have impact at scale: We have the data and resources to make an impact at scale. When our solutions are deployed, they have the potential to make health care system work better for everyone
• Do ground-breaking work: Many of our current projects involve cutting edge ML, NLP and LLM techniques. Generative AI methods for working with structured and unstructured health care data are continuously being developed and improved. We are working in one of the most important frontiers of AI/ML research and development
• Partner with world-class experts on innovative solutions: Our team members are developing novel AI/ML solutions to business challenges. In some cases, this includes the opportunity to file patents and publish papers about the methods we develop. We also collaborate with AI/ML researchers at some of the world's top universities

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.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Drive end-to-end Machine Learning projects that have a high degree of ambiguity, scale and complexity
• Lead the team in bringing the ML models built by the OptumAI team to production with high scalability, reliability, availability, performance, and cost efficiency
• Contribute to our org-wide product ideation in collaboration with other engineering leaders, engineers, scientist, product managers, and SMEs
• Maintain hands-on involvement in key AI projects, actively contributing to code, model development, and technical solutions
• Drive innovation through research and adoption of cutting-edge AI technologies and methodologies
• Personally design, develop, and implement AI and machine learning models using deep learning algorithms and deep understanding of agentic approaches
• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership to translate business needs into AI strategy
• Collaborate with team leads in the deployment and maintenance of AI models in production environments, ensuring scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness
• Lead the integration of AI solutions with existing systems and applications
• Build Machine Learning models, perform proof-of-concept, experiment, optimize, and deploy your models into production; work closely with software engineers to assist in productionizing the ML models
• Perform hands-on analysis and modeling of healthcare data sets to develop insights that increase business value
• Run A/B experiments, gather data, and perform statistical analysis
• Establish scalable, efficient, automated processes for large-scale data analysis, machine-learning model development, model validation and serving
• Research and implement innovative GenAI approaches
• Mentor and help recruit AI/ML scientists and machine learning engineers to the team

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.
Required Qualifications:

• A PhD in AI, computer science, data science, applied math or related technical fields
• 8+ years of industry/academic experience in machine learning or a related field
• 5+ years of building models for business application experience
• 5+ years leading technical teams
• Hands-on experience with machine learning libraries and frameworks
• Experience with modern AI tools, frameworks, and methodologies
• Experienced mathematical background, especially in optimization theory, stochastic algorithms, and/or numerical methods
• Experience with state-of-the-art algorithms and topologies including, but not limited to: GNNs, GANs, Transformers, deep and wide, SSMs, LLMs among others
• In-depth knowledge in Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLM) and Agentic technology
• Comprehensive knowledge of statistical methods, machine learning algorithms, and AI principles
• Solid and current programming skills in Python or other relevant programming languages

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in AI/ML in the healthcare and or Fintech sector
• Experience in establishing AI/ML best practices, standards, and ethics

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $134,600 to $230,800 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.
UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.
UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.