Lead AI/ML Engineer

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

We are seeking an experienced AI/ML Builder for the AIFWD team, with a solid foundation in Analytics (5+ years), Machine Learning (3+ years), hands-on AI development (2+ years), and front-end engineering, particularly React (2+ years). The ideal candidate is passionate about building scalable, full-stack AI/ML solutions - from model and agent logic through to the user-facing interface - and is committed to ongoing support, optimization, and enhancement of deployed use cases.

This role spans the full lifecycle - from problem discovery to deployment, UI delivery, and operational support - across multiple high-impact AIFWD initiatives.

Primary Responsibilities:

• AI Builder
  • Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered solutions to solve complex business challenges, with an emphasis on responsible AI use
  • Streamline workflows and automate tasks using enterprise-approved AI tools and ML/LLM frameworks
  • Evaluate emerging AI/ML trends to inform solution design and drive continuous improvement
  • Support the end-to-end lifecycle of AI/ML use cases - data preparation, feature engineering, modeling, deployment, monitoring, MLOps, and post-production enhancements
  • Design and build Gen AI/LLM-powered features such as chat interfaces, copilots, RAG-based search, and agentic workflows
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams across engineering, product, and data teams to operationalize AI workloads efficiently
• UI/Frontend
  • Build responsive, production-grade UIs (primarily in React) that expose AI/ML and LLM capabilities to end users
  • Integrate front-end applications with AI/ML backends, APIs, and streaming LLM responses (e.g., token streaming, chat UX, status/progress states)
  • Translate AI/ML outputs (predictions, embeddings, agent actions, RAG citations) into intuitive, usable interface components
  • Collaborate with design/product teams to ensure AI-driven features are explainable, trustworthy, and user-friendly
  • Contribute to component libraries/design systems used across AIFWD AI products
• Development & Support
  • Build production-ready ML pipelines and services (batch/real-time)
  • Provide L2/L3 support for deployed AI/ML systems, ensuring reliability, model drift management, and performance optimization
  • Conduct root-cause analysis for production incidents involving model performance, data changes, or UI/integration issues
  • Maintain documentation, versioning, and traceability of models, training datasets, and front-end codebases
• Comply with all applicable Company policies, procedures, and business directives, changes including those relating to work location, team assignments, work schedules, and flexible work arrangements

Required Qualifications:

• Experience:
  • 5+ years in Data Analytics, statistical modeling, or data-driven problem solving
  • 3+ years in Machine Learning model development (supervised, unsupervised, NLP, forecasting, optimization, etc.)
  • 2+ years in hands-on AI/LLM development (prompt engineering, RAG, agent workflows, embeddings, vector stores, generative models)
  • 2+ years in front-end development, primarily React (component architecture, state management, API integration)
• Technical Skills:
  • AI/ML & Gen AI
    • Experience with LLM-based development, including instruction tuning, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or evaluation frameworks
    • Practical experience with AI development tools such as Copilot Studio, GitHub Copilot, or M365 Copilot integrations
    • Experience with vector databases/embedding stores (e.g., Pinecone, FAISS, Chroma, Azure AI Search)
    • Solid Python programming experience (NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-Learn, PyTorch/TensorFlow)
    • Knowledge of MLOps tools (Azure ML, AWS Sagemaker, MLflow, Databricks, KubeFlow, Feature Stores)
    • Exposure to agentic AI patterns, automated workflows, and API-based integrations
    • Familiarity with LLM orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel)
    • Understanding of model evaluation, guardrails, and hallucination mitigation techniques for Gen AI applications
  • Front-End / UI:
    • Solid hands-on experience with React (hooks, component design, state management - Redux/Context/Zustand)
    • Experience building UIs that consume streaming APIs (e.g., SSE/WebSockets for LLM token streaming)
    • Working knowledge of TypeScript, HTML5, CSS3, and modern build tooling (Vite, Webpack)
    • Familiarity with REST/GraphQL API integration and basic UX principles for AI-driven interfaces
    • Exposure to design systems/component libraries (e.g., Material UI, Tailwind, shadcn/ui)
  • Platform & Data:
    • Experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred) and containerized deployments (Docker/Kubernetes)
    • Familiarity with data engineering fundamentals - ETL/ELT, SQL, data modeling, streaming pipelines
    • Basic understanding of CI/CD pipelines covering both model and front-end deployment

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting multiple simultaneous AI/ML use cases, including user-facing AI products
• Experience as a full-stack AI engineer, bridging ML/LLM backend work with React front-end delivery
• Understanding of Responsible AI principles and enterprise AI safety guidelines
• Solid problem-solving orientation and ability to convert ambiguous business problems into well-structured, end-to-end AI solutions (model + UI)
• Ability to coach teams on using AI tools and contribute to AI adoption across the organization

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.