Sr Cloud Engineer - Remote

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.

The Senior Cloud Engineer plays a critical role in ensuring the reliability, security, and operational excellence of public cloud environments supporting production workloads. This is a hands on cloud operations position focused on incident response, automation, and Infrastructure as Code, partnering with application teams to continuously improve Azure based platforms.

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:

Cloud Operations & Reliability

• Operate and support public cloud environments running production workloads
• Apply Well‑Architected Framework principles (security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, operational excellence) to drive continuous improvement
• Support day‑to‑day operations, including on‑call rotation and scheduled maintenance
• Coordinate and execute high‑quality planned changes without service impact
• Lead incident response, participate in war rooms, perform root cause analysis, and drive corrective actions
• Improve monitoring, alerting, and observability across cloud environments

Infrastructure as Code & Automation

• Design, build, and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and GitHub Actions
• Develop automation using Python (and PowerShell where appropriate) to reduce operational toil
• Promote standardized, repeatable deployment patterns
• Reduce configuration drift and ensure consistency across dev, test, and prod environments
• Leverage Generative AI tools to improve development and operational efficiency

Security, Cost, and Governance

• Embed security best practices into cloud designs (identity, networking, encryption, secrets management)
• Enforce enterprise security, governance, and compliance requirements
• Identify and remediate cloud vulnerabilities within defined SLAs
• Partner with security teams to meet regulatory and compliance expectations
• Identify and execute cloud cost optimization opportunities

Collaboration & Leadership

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to application teams adopting public cloud
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to shared documentation and operational playbooks
• Stay current on enterprise cloud platforms, tooling, and industry best practices
• Demonstrate solid ownership, self‑initiative, and commitment to mastering public cloud operations
• Leverage enterprise-approved AI tools to streamline workflows, automate tasks, and drive continuous improvement.  

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:

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent practical experience
• 8+ years of hands‑on experience in cloud engineering, infrastructure, or platform operations
• 8+ years supporting mission‑critical production environments
• 3+ years developing Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and automation (Python)
• Solid production experience in Azure (preferred); AWS or GCP acceptable with demonstrated ability to ramp quickly into Azure
• Proven deep understanding of cloud infrastructure, networking, identity, and security fundamentals
• Experience working ServiceNow incidents and participating in war rooms for high‑severity production issues
• Demonstrated automation skills using Python
• Ability to participate in an on‑call rotation and perform off‑hours maintenance

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Practical experience applying SRE principles (error budgets, reliability metrics, incident postmortems) in production environments
• Advanced public cloud certification (e.g., Azure Solutions Architect Expert)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and Git‑based workflows, including GitHub Actions
• Experience with Splunk or similar observability tools, including alerts, dashboards, and reporting
• Demonstrated familiarity with cloud cost optimization / FinOps practices
• Experience using AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot) to improve automation and Infrastructure as Code

*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 $91,700 to $163,700 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.