Principal Data Engineer

Requisition Number: 2368530
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 hiring a Principal Data Analyst with strong expertise in Databricks, Python, SQL, and modern data analytics practices to design and build scalable data platforms. The role will drive data driven decision making, data architecture, AI/ML enablement, governance, and engineering excellence. The ideal candidate will partner closely with business stakeholders, data engineers, and data scientists while driving analytics best practices, governance, and SDLC maturity.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead advanced data analysis and insights generation to support strategic business decisions
• Develop and optimize complex queries and data transformations using SQL, Python, and Databricks
• Design and deliver scalable analytical datasets and semantic layers
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into actionable insights
• Enable AI/ML use cases by preparing curated datasets and supporting feature engineering
• Work with data engineering teams to ensure data quality, integrity, and availability
• Leverage Databricks, Delta Lake, and Unity Catalog for data exploration and governance
• Drive adoption of modern analytics practices (self-service analytics, data democratization)
• Develop dashboards, reports, and KPIs using BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, etc.)
• Implement and enforce data quality checks, validation, and monitoring frameworks
• Support SDLC / AIDLC best practices including versioning, testing, and documentation
• Mentor analysts and contribute to building a strong analytics culture
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Technical Skills
  • 10+ years of experience in SQL: Advanced querying & optimization
  • 10+ years of experience in Data analyst: Enterprise-scale platforms
  • 6+ years of experience in Databricks: Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows
  • 6+ years of experience in Python / PySpark: Large-scale data processing
  • 5+ years of experience in Data Modeling: Analytical and semantic modeling
  • 5+ years of experience in Cloud Platform: Azure (preferred), AWS, or GCP
  • 5+ years of experience in Data Modeling: Dimensional & lakehouse models
  • 3+ years of experience in AI/ML Pipelines: Feature engineering, ML flow, Generative AI (GPT, Claude, Gemini)
  • 3+ years of experience in DevOps & SDLC: CI/CD, data testing
  • 3+ years of experience in Data Governance: Unity Catalog, lineage, metadata

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.