The Role
Build scalable Java microservices and integrate production AI capabilities, including LLM workflows, RAG pipelines, agent systems, vector search, evaluation, safeguards, and observability. Own features through deployment and production support, use AI-assisted development tools, collaborate across product and security teams, mentor engineers, and shape responsible AI and engineering standards.
Summary Generated by Built In
Requisition Number: 2397950
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're looking for a Java engineer who builds with AI as well as with code. You'll design and build scalable, secure Java services. You'll also add AI features to those services, such as LLM-powered workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and AI agents. And you'll use AI coding tools to speed up how the team delivers.
This role suits someone with deep backend engineering skills who has already shipped AI features to production, or is clearly on the way there. We are not looking for someone who only experiments with AI.
Primary Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
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.
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're looking for a Java engineer who builds with AI as well as with code. You'll design and build scalable, secure Java services. You'll also add AI features to those services, such as LLM-powered workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and AI agents. And you'll use AI coding tools to speed up how the team delivers.
This role suits someone with deep backend engineering skills who has already shipped AI features to production, or is clearly on the way there. We are not looking for someone who only experiments with AI.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Core engineering
- Design, build and maintain high-performance microservices using Java 17+ and Spring Boot
- Build and use REST, GraphQL and event-driven APIs (Kafka) that are secure, observable and resilient
- Own features end to end: design, code, test, deploy and support in production
- Write clean, testable code and keep code quality and test coverage high
- AI building
- Build LLM-powered features into enterprise apps using Spring AI, LangChain4j or provider SDKs (Azure OpenAI, OpenAI and others)
- Design and run RAG pipelines. This covers splitting documents into chunks, building embeddings, working with vector stores (pgvector, Azure AI Search, Elasticsearch, Pinecone) and tuning how results are retrieved and ranked
- Build agent workflows that use tools and function calls, and connect them to internal systems, for example through the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Write, version and test prompts. Set up evaluation frameworks to measure accuracy, groundedness, latency and cost
- Build in safeguards: PII/PHI redaction, content filters, protection against prompt injection, and human review where it's needed
- Monitor AI features in production and tune them for token use, response time and reliability
- AI-assisted engineering
- Use AI coding assistants (such as GitHub Copilot) in daily development, testing, refactoring and documentation, and share good practices with the team
- Find chances to automate engineering work with AI, such as generating tests, triaging code reviews, and summarizing incidents
- Collaboration and leadership
- Work with product, data science, architecture and security teams to turn business problems into AI solutions
- Mentor other engineers in modern Java and AI development
- Help shape team standards for responsible AI, architecture and engineering practice
- 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:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience
- Java and backend
- 8+ years of hands-on Java work, with strong knowledge of Java 11/17+, multithreading, collections and the JVM
- Experience with microservices, REST APIs and messaging (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
- Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred, or Azure or GCP), Docker and Kubernetes
- Experience with CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) and test frameworks (JUnit, Mockito, Testcontainers)
- Proven solid with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Security and JPA/Hibernate
- Proven solid with SQL and NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, Redis)
- AI skills
- Hands-on experience building apps with LLMs (GPT, Claude, Llama, Gemini or similar) through APIs
- Knowledge of responsible AI principles, data privacy and secure AI design
- Good understanding of embeddings, vector search, RAG and prompt engineering
- Understands the limits of LLMs, including hallucination, context limits, non-deterministic output and cost, and knows how to design around them
- Familiar with agent concepts: tool and function calling, planning, memory and multi-agent orchestration
Ways of working- Proven solid problem-solving and system design skills
- Proven clear communicator who can explain AI trade-offs to people without a technical background
- Proven curious and keeps up with the fast-moving AI field
Preferred Qualifications:
- Certifications such as Azure AI Engineer Associate, AWS ML Specialty, or Oracle Java certification
- Experience with MCP servers, Copilot Studio or other agent platforms
- Experience with LLM evaluation and observability tools (LangSmith, Langfuse, Arize, OpenTelemetry)
- Experience in healthcare, with an understanding of HIPAA, PHI handling and regulated environments
- Basic ML knowledge: model fine-tuning, classic ML and NLP
- Working knowledge of Spring AI and/or LangChain4j. Python experience with LangChain or LlamaIndex
- Proven event-driven or reactive programming (Spring WebFlux)
- Public work: GitHub projects, AI side projects, blog posts or talks.
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.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience
- 8+ years of hands-on Java experience, including Java 11/17+, multithreading, collections, and JVM knowledge
- Experience building microservices, REST APIs, and messaging systems using Kafka or RabbitMQ
- Experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP, plus Docker and Kubernetes
- Experience with CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps
- Experience with JUnit, Mockito, and Testcontainers
- Strong experience with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Security, and JPA/Hibernate
- Strong SQL and NoSQL database experience, including PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, or Redis
- Hands-on experience building LLM applications through APIs
- Understanding of responsible AI, data privacy, secure AI design, embeddings, vector search, RAG, and prompt engineering
- Understanding of LLM limitations and methods for addressing hallucinations, context limits, nondeterminism, and cost
- Familiarity with AI agent concepts including tool calling, function calling, planning, memory, and multi-agent orchestration
- Strong problem-solving, system design, communication, and continuous-learning skills
- Azure AI Engineer Associate, AWS ML Specialty, or Oracle Java certification
- Experience with MCP servers, Copilot Studio, or other agent platforms
- Experience with LLM evaluation and observability tools such as LangSmith, Langfuse, Arize, or OpenTelemetry
- Healthcare experience, including HIPAA, PHI handling, or regulated environments
- Basic machine learning, model fine-tuning, classic ML, and NLP knowledge
- Working knowledge of Spring AI, LangChain4j, Python, LangChain, or LlamaIndex
- Experience with event-driven or reactive programming using Spring WebFlux
- Public GitHub projects, AI side projects, blog posts, or talks
Optum Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off is often regarded as generous, with meaningful accrual and flexibility to use it. While practices can vary by team, the overall time-off offering stands out as a relative strength.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) plan with employer matching is available and generally well-regarded for supporting long-term savings. It remains valuable, though candidates should verify the current match formula.
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Parental & Family Support — Programs such as parental leave, family medical leave, and adoption assistance are included as notable elements of the total rewards package. These resources can meaningfully support work-life balance when applicable to the role and location.
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The Company
What We Do
Optum, part of the UnitedHealth Group family of businesses, 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. At Optum, we support your well-being with an understanding team, extensive benefits and rewarding opportunities. By joining us, you’ll have the resources to drive system transformation while we help you take care of your future. We recognize the power of connection to drive change, improve efficiency and make a difference in health care. Join a team where your skills and ideas can make an impact and where collaboration is key to creating technology that produces healthier outcomes.
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Optum Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
Optum has three workplace models that balance the needs of the business and the responsibilities of each role. These models, core on‑site (5 days/week), hybrid (4 days/week) and telecommute or fully remote, vary by country, role and location.
Typical time on-site:
Not Specified
