AI-First Tech Lead: Enterprise AI & Governance

Optum; Charleston (WV); Remote; USD 113,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Incentive programs

Equity stock purchase

401k contribution

Job summary

Optum is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to shape an AI-first engineering direction for the PATH initiative and to lead enterprise-scale AI delivery across the platform.

You will define the AI-First vision, own the AI SDLC, and drive the adoption of Generative AI, Agentic AI, and intelligent automation while ensuring governance, security, and regulatory compliance across engineering teams.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of enterprise software engineering experience.
• 5+ years in senior leadership roles as Lead Engineer or Architect.
• 3+ years leading AI transformation or enterprise AI adoption.
• Hands-on with Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, vector databases, AI orchestration and model evaluation.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the AI-First vision and roadmap for PATH platform.
• Own AI SDLC adoption across requirements, design, coding, testing, deployment, and support.
• Set measurable productivity, quality, and efficiency goals using AI practices.
• Mentor teams on prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI observability, and solution architecture.
• Serve as senior technical leader and escalation point for architecture and production issues.
• Translate complex business and regulatory requirements into technical designs and engineering deliverables.

Skills

AI leadership

Architectural leadership

Generative AI

LLMs

RAG

Vector databases

CI/CD automation

AWS

Regulated environments

KPIs tracking

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AWS

DevSecOps

CI/CD tooling

Monitoring/Observability tools

RAG tooling

Vector databases

Job description

Optum is seeking a Lead AI Engineer to shape an AI-first engineering direction for the PATH initiative and to lead enterprise-scale AI delivery across the platform.

You will define the AI-First vision, own the AI SDLC, and drive the adoption of Generative AI, Agentic AI, and intelligent automation while ensuring governance, security, and regulatory compliance across engineering teams.