Director AI/ML Engineering

About the Role

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 a seasoned Director, AI/ML Engineering to lead the strategy, development, and delivery of enterprise\-scale AI solutions within the healthcare domain. This role will drive initiatives across contract digitization, document intelligence, claims research automation, NLP, LLMs, and Generative AI solutions while leading cross\-functional teams of AI/ML engineers, data scientists, data engineers, and cloud engineers. **Primary Responsibilities:** * Define and execute the AI/ML strategy aligned with business objectives * Lead end\-to\-end delivery of AI\-powered healthcare solutions * Drive innovation in contract digitization, intelligent document processing, claims automation, and GenAI applications * Establish scalable AI/ML platforms, MLOps practices, governance, and engineering standards * Guide cloud\-native architecture using Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, Document Intelligence, AI Search, Databricks, and Kubernetes * Build, mentor, and grow high\-performing AI engineering teams * Partner with business and technology leaders to drive AI adoption and measurable outcomes * 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:** * Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field * 12\+ years of technology experience * 8\+ years of engineering leadership experience * 5\+ years leading enterprise AI/ML programs * Experience in healthcare, payer, provider, PBM, or regulated industries * Experience with Core Technical Skills + AI/ML and GenAI - Machine Learning, Deep Learning, NLP - LLMs, Generative AI, Agentic AI - RAG, Semantic Search, Knowledge Graphs - Predictive Analytics and Classification Models + Document Intelligence - OCR, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) - Contract Analytics - Information Extraction and Document Understanding + Cloud and Platforms - Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, Azure ML - Azure AI Search, Azure Document Intelligence - Databricks, Cosmos DB - Kubernetes, Docker + Engineering Excellence - MLOps, CI/CD, DevOps - Infrastructure as Code - Model Governance and Responsible AI - Monitoring and Observability * Proven track record delivering production\-scale AI solutions **Preferred Qualifications:** * Master's degree * Healthcare contract digitization solutions experience * Claims, provider, reimbursement, or payment integrity workflows experience * RAG and Agentic AI implementations experience * Enterprise AI transformation programs experience * Experience in managing globally distributed teams **Success Measures:** * Successful delivery of AI programs * Business value from AI adoption and automation * Improved operational efficiency * Scalable, reliable, and gover *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.* \#Exectech