Data Engineering Lead

Optum; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 3,200,000 - 5,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Optum is seeking a Data Engineering Lead to architect, build, and scale data platforms across cloud-native stacks. You will lead teams, design ETL/ELT processes, and partner with analytics, product, and engineering to align data solutions with business goals.

You will champion data governance, quality, and performance, while mentoring engineers and delivering reliable, cost-efficient data systems on AWS, Airflow, and MSSQL in a global health context.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in Data Engineering with 6+ years in a lead role.
• 3+ years using AWS for data architecture and pipelines.
• Extensive Airflow experience for workflow orchestration.
• Strong MSSQL optimization and data modeling skills.
• Knowledge of data governance, quality, lineage, and security.
• Experience with data warehousing, ETL/ELT, and big data processing.
• Proficiency in Python (Pandas, PySpark).
• Proven leadership, communication, and cross-team collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement scalable data platforms, pipelines, and ETL/ELT workflows.
• Lead end-to-end data engineering efforts with reliability and cost efficiency.
• Mentor junior and senior data engineers and drive technical excellence.
• Collaborate with analytics, product, engineering, and business to align data solutions.
• Build and maintain robust pipelines using Python, SQL, and Airflow.
• Manage large-scale ingestion, transformation, and orchestration frameworks.
• Optimize MSSQL queries, stored procedures, and schema designs.
• Develop cloud-native platforms on AWS (S3, Glue, Lambda, Redshift, etc.).
• Ensure high availability, DR, and monitoring of data workflows.
• Implement CI/CD and IaC practices for data workloads.
• Drive data warehousing, modeling, partitioning, and metadata management.
• Establish data governance, lineage, validation, and documentation.

Skills

Data platform design

ETL/ELT

Cloud architecture

Python

SQL/NoSQL

Airflow

MSSQL optimization

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

DevOps for data

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

AWS

Apache Airflow

MSSQL

Python

Informatica/SSIS

SQL/NoSQL databases

Job description

Improve the lives of others while Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

Job Description - Data Engineering Lead (2390100)

Data Engineering Lead - 2390100

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.

Primary Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership
  • Architect, design, and implement scalable data platforms, pipelines, and ETL/ELT workflows
  • Lead end to end data engineering efforts, ensuring reliability, performance, and cost efficient data systems
  • Mentor and guide junior and senior data engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaboration
  • Collaborate with cross functional teams (analytics, product, engineering, business) to align data solutions with business goals
• Build, optimize, and maintain robust data pipelines using Python, SQL, and Apache Airflow
• Manage large-scale data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration frameworks
• Optimize database queries, stored procedures, and schema design in MSSQL and other SQL/NoSQL systems
• Develop and manage cloud native data platforms using AWS services (S3, Glue, Lambda, RDS, Redshift, EC2, Step Functions, etc.)
• Ensure high availability, disaster recovery, and monitoring of critical data workflows
• Implement CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and DevOps practices for data engineering workloads
• Data Warehousing & Modeling
  • Design and enhance enterprise data warehouses and data marts following industry best practices
  • Drive dimensional modeling, data partitioning, performance tuning, and metadata management
  • Ensure consistency and quality across analytical datasets and data sources
• Data Governance & Quality
  • Establish data quality frameworks, lineage tracking, validation checks, and documentation
  • Implement governance standards including security, compliance, and access controls
  • Partner with business stakeholders to define and enforce master data and reference data strategies
• 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 degree or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of experience in Data Engineering, with 6+ years in a role
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with AWS Cloud for data architecture and pipeline development, especially key services like AWS Glue
• Extensive experience with Airflow for workflow orchestration
• Solid expertise in MSSQL - query optimization, indexing, stored procedures, performance tuning
• Solid knowledge in building Machine learning models, Generative AI, Building Multi Agent System (Google ADK preferable)
• Solid knowledge of data management principles: governance, quality, lineage, and security
• Solid understanding of Data Warehousing, ETL/ELT (Airflow, Informatica/SSIS), and big data processing
• Proficiency in Python for data engineering (Pandas, PySpark, etc.)
• Proven excellent leadership, communication, and cross team collaboration skills
• Proven ability to translate business needs into scalable technical designs

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 committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you need special assistance or accommodation for any part of the application process, please call 1-866-566-8715 to be connected to Recruitment Services. Recruitment Services hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday.

UnitedHealth Group is a registered service mark of UnitedHealth Group, Inc. The UnitedHealth Group name with the dimensional logo, as well as the dimensional logo alone, are both service marks for the UnitedHealth Group, Inc.

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

UnitedHealth Group is a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.