Senior Director, Software Engineering

Optum; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work arrangements

Hybrid Dublin office/home

Job summary

Optum in Ireland is seeking a Senior Director of Software Engineering to provide strategic and technical leadership across a large-scale engineering organisation, focusing on modern software engineering, cloud-native architecture, and AI-enabled solutions.

This senior role shapes engineering strategy, guides multi-platform systems, and accelerates adoption of AI across products and engineering teams while upholding high standards and technical capability. Hybrid Dublin presence is offered.

Qualifications

• Significant professional software engineering experience with large-scale, multi-platform systems.
• Proven experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams, managers, or principal engineers.
• Experience designing, developing and deploying AI-powered applications and ML systems.
• Experience with enterprise cloud platforms and modern architectures (microservices, API design, event-driven)
• Experience establishing engineering standards and driving DevOps/CI‑CD adoption.
• Experience within healthcare environments.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and technical direction for a large-scale software engineering organization.
• Lead the design, development, and deployment of enterprise AI-powered solutions and platforms.
• Promote responsible and ethical use of AI across products and teams.
• Drive AI adoption and align hiring with AI competencies.
• Champion secure SDLC practices and modern development standards.
• Collaborate with business leaders to translate vision into scalable technology solutions.

Skills

Leadership

AI/ML

Cloud platforms

DevOps/CI‑CD

Healthcare domain

Education

Bachelor's/Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

Azure

AWS

GCP

Job description

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 diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve and help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

We are hiring for a Senior Director, Software Engineering to provide strategic and technical leadership across a large-scale engineering organisation, with a particular focus on modern software engineering, cloud-native architecture and AI-enabled solutions.

This is a senior leadership opportunity to shape engineering strategy and technical direction within Optum, leading teams responsible for building complex, enterprise-scale technology solutions that support healthcare at scale.

You will work across engineering, product, and business leadership to turn complex challenges into scalable technology solutions, while helping accelerate the adoption of AI across both our products and the way our engineering teams work. You'll also play a key role in strengthening engineering standards, modern development practices and technical capability across the organisation.

Careers with Optum offer flexible work arrangements and individuals who live and work in the Republic of Ireland will have the opportunity to split their monthly work hours between our Dublin office and telecommuting from a home-based office in a hybrid work model.

Primary Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and technical direction for a large-scale software engineering organization, guiding the architecture, design, and deployment of complex, multi-platform systems
• Lead the design, development, and deployment of enterprise-scale AI-powered solutions and platforms to address complex business and healthcare challenges, with an emphasis on responsible and ethical use of AI
• Strategically use AI to solve problems, unlock opportunities, and deliver tangible business value to the organization
• Champion AI as a core driver of your team's success and proactively shape how that AI is developed, deployed, and utilized
• Champion the ethical use of AI by embedding transparency, fairness, and accountability throughout the entire AI lifecycle
• Integrate enterprise AI tools, set AI goals in development plans, and align hiring with AI competencies, actively removing barriers to accelerate adoption
• Evaluate emerging technologies and AI trends to inform solution design, drive strategic innovation, and keep the organization at the forefront of technical capabilities
• Empower and guide engineering teams to leverage enterprise-approved AI tools and technologies to streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and continuously improve software delivery velocity and quality
• Drive engineering excellence, modern development practices (DevSecOps, CI/CD, cloud-native architectures), and product-centric delivery across engineering squads
• Foster a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and collaboration, mentoring principal engineers and engineering leaders
• Collaborate with business leaders, product owners, and other stakeholders to translate business vision into robust, scalable technology solutions

You will 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 providing development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications

• Proven significant experience in professional software engineering, including designing and building large-scale, multi-platform applications
• Proven extensive experience in people leadership, including leading multidisciplinary engineering teams, engineering managers, or principal engineers
• Proven solid experience designing, developing, and deploying AI-powered applications, machine learning systems, or automated software solutions
• Proven solid experience working with enterprise cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including modern architecture patterns such as microservices, API design, and event-driven systems
• Proven experience establishing engineering standards, architectural patterns, and driving adoption of DevOps and CI/CD practices
• Proven experience within healthcare environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree, Master's degree, or equivalent practical experience in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline
• Demonstrated solid hands-on experience with modern AI and machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch, or Generative AI and large language model (LLM) development tools such as LangChain and OpenAI APIs
• Demonstrated in-depth understanding of secure software development lifecycles (SSDLC) and data privacy standards within highly regulated industries, including healthcare and financial services
• Proven track record driving AI-enabled business transformation initiatives or automation strategies within large enterprise organizations
• Demonstrated solid communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical business leaders

Please note you must currently be eligible to work and remain indefinitely without any restrictions in the country to which you are making an application. Proof will be required to support your application.

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. Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, race, and membership of the Traveller community, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optum is a drug-free workplace. © 2026 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.