Principal AI/ML Engineer - Remote Nationwide or Hybrid in MN/DC

Requisition Number: 2371685
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.
We are looking for a Principal AI/ML Engineer to lead the architecture, design, and end-to-end development of production-grade AI/ML systems. This is a hands-on technical leadership role - you'll set engineering standards, drive adoption of modern ML and agentic AI approaches, and translate research into scalable, enterprise-ready solutions used across the business.
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:

• Lead architecture, design, and end-to-end delivery of production AI/ML systems - training, deployment, and monitoring pipelines
• Drive adoption of deep learning and agentic AI approaches across use cases such as NLP/NLU, intent classification, semantic understanding, and ASR
• Translate research and experimental findings into scalable, enterprise-ready solutions
• Define and enforce engineering best practices across the ML lifecycle - versioning, CI/CD, drift detection, performance optimization, model governance
• Design and evaluate agentic workflows (multi-step reasoning, tool-use, orchestration) and establish standards for evaluating and monitoring them safely in production
• Partner with data scientists and applied researchers to bridge the gap between prototypes, platform and production
• Work with large-scale computing frameworks and distributed data systems to process high-volume datasets
• Present model performance, architectural decisions, and technical tradeoffs to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers; set the technical bar across the AI/ML engineering function
• Evaluate and introduce emerging AI/ML tools, frameworks, and platformsMentor and guide senior and mid-level engineers, setting technical standards across the AI/ML engineering function
• Evaluate and introduce emerging AI/ML tools, frameworks, and platforms to continuously improve engineering capabilities
• Apply knowledge of statistics, probability theory, optimization, and experimental methodologies to build robust, reliable ML systems

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:

• Bachelor's degree or 4+ years of equivalent software engineering or AI/ML experience in lieu of a degree
• 12+ years of total software/ML engineering experience
• 8+ years building and deploying production systems
• 3+ years of experience in a technical leadership, architecture, or staff/principal-level engineering capacity
• 3+ years solid Python skills with hands-on depth in at least one major deep learning framework (PyTorch or TensorFlow)
• 3+ years of proven experience architecting end-to-end ML pipelines: data ingestion, training, serving, and monitoring
• 3+ years of working experience with at least one cloud ML platform (AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, or GCP Vertex AI)
• 3+ years of solid grounding in statistics, probability theory, optimization, and experimental design
• 3+ years of MLOps experience: CI/CD for models, versioning, drift detection, automated retraining, performance observability, and governance
• 2+ years of practical, hands-on experience building or deploying LLM-based or agentic systems - orchestration, tool-use/function calling, RAG, or multi-agent workflows
• Proven understanding of how to evaluate, guardrail, and monitor agentic systems in production (this, not framework trivia, is the bar at Principal level)
• Proven solid communication skills; demonstrated ability to explain complex architecture and tradeoffs to non-technical leadership
• Demonstrated track record mentoring engineers and setting technical standards

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related field
• Experience working within the healthcare industry or with healthcare-related data standards
• Experience with Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), including prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
• Experience leading and mentoring engineering teams or driving technical standards across an organization

*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 $164,600 to $282,200 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.
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