AI/ML Engineer Remote Nationwide or Office-Based in MN/DC/NJ

UnitedHealth Group; Minnetonka (MN); Hybrid; USD 99,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Equity stock purchase

401k contribution

Incentive programs

Job summary

UnitedHealth Group's Optum Tech seeks an AI/ML engineering leader to drive responsible AI adoption for provider technologies. You will design and deploy production-grade AI/ML services, ensure privacy and security, and mentor engineers in LLM patterns and tool usage.

Remote-friendly within the U.S., with in-office four days per week for Minneapolis or Washington, D.C.-area hires. The role emphasizes scalable architectures, measurable outcomes, and collaboration with product, data science, and

Qualifications

• 2+ years of hands-on experience with chatbots, NLP, RAG, embeddings, and semantic search patterns.
• 3+ years of solid programming experience in Python or Java, with clean code and testing.
• 1+ years of hands-on experience with Agentic AI, tool-calling workflows, MCP or similar orchestration frameworks, and Strands Agents.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.

Responsibilities

• Lead the responsible adoption of AI/ML across the team, applying Generative AI, Agentic AI, NLP, predictive modeling, and ML to provider use cases.
• Design, build, evaluate, deploy, and improve production-grade AI/ML services, APIs, and applications.
• Engineer responsible AI solutions with guardrails, privacy and security controls, and compliance with enterprise standards.
• Develop LLM-powered capabilities using prompt engineering, RAG, embeddings, vector search, and evaluation techniques.
• Provide technical leadership for agentic AI, chatbots, voice assistants, and workflow automation.

Skills

AI/ML engineering

Python/Java

NLP & Chatbots

MCP orchestration

Data security & privacy

Tools

Strands Agents

Job description

Optum Tech is a global leader in health care innovation. Our teams develop cutting-edge solutions that help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. From advanced data analytics and AI to cybersecurity, we use innovative approaches to solve some of health care's most complex challenges. Your contributions here have the potential to change lives. Ready to build the next breakthrough? Join us in making healthcare work better for everyone through people-led, responsible AI while Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

The Provider Digital Technology team delivers a unified, intuitive digital entry point for UnitedHealthcare providers and partners to access tools, services, and information. We build secure, scalable capabilities that simplify how providers discover, navigate, and engage across the Portal, API, EDI, Chat, and Voice channels.

Our AI/ML engineering team develops production-grade intelligent solutions, including generative AI assistants, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, conversational AI, predictive models, and intelligent automation. We partner across UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group to integrate enterprise applications and data sources while applying responsible AI, privacy, security, safety, observability, and human-centered design principles. This work reduces friction, improves provider workflows, and enables faster, more effective problem-solving across the health care ecosystem.

You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead the responsible adoption of AI/ML across the team, applying Generative AI, Agentic AI, NLP, predictive modeling, and traditional machine learning to high-value provider use cases
• Design, build, evaluate, deploy, and continuously improve production-grade AI/ML services, APIs, and applications that meet customer, business, reliability, and scalability needs
• Engineer responsible AI solutions with appropriate guardrails, privacy and security controls, human oversight, auditability, and compliance with enterprise and regulatory standards
• Develop LLM-powered capabilities using prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, vector search, tool use, structured outputs, and model evaluation techniques
• Provide technical leadership for Agentic AI, chatbots, voice assistants, conversational AI, and workflow automation, including orchestration through MCP or similar frameworks
• Partner with product managers, architects, data scientists, platform teams, and engineering leaders to translate complex health care needs into scalable AI solutions
• Align solution architecture with enterprise AI strategy, reusable platform capabilities, engineering standards, cloud modernization, and measurable business outcomes
• Establish high-quality engineering practices for experimentation, automated testing, model and prompt evaluation, CI/CD, observability, performance, resiliency, and production support
• Mentor engineers on AI/ML architecture, Python and Java development, responsible AI, LLM application patterns, evaluation frameworks, and operational excellence
• Integrate AI capabilities with enterprise data, APIs, event-driven services, cloud platforms, and digital channels while maintaining secure and reliable data flows
• Exercise independent judgment to prioritize technical work, manage delivery risks, communicate tradeoffs, and drive AI initiatives from proof of concept through production scale

You’ll 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 provide development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

• 2+ years of hands-on experience with chatbots, conversational AI, NLP, RAG, embeddings, vector databases, and semantic search patterns
• 3+ years of solid programming experience in Python or Java, including clean code, automated testing, source control, and modern software engineering practices
• 1+ years of hands-on experience with Agentic AI, tool-calling workflows, MCP or similar orchestration frameworks, and Strands Agents
• Must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future employer-sponsored visa sponsorship (e.g., H-1B, TN, F-1/OPT, CPT, or other employment-based visa status)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Solid knowledge of AI/ML production operations, including security, access controls, responsible AI guardrails, evaluation, logging, monitoring, performance tuning, disaster recovery, and incident support
• Experience delivering production AI/ML solutions in the health care industry or another highly regulated environment
• Full-stack engineering experience and familiarity with modern web frameworks, cloud-native architectures, and infrastructure-as-code
• Experience with LLM evaluation, prompt testing, RAG quality measurement, model monitoring, and AI observability
• Experience with MLOps or LLMOps, CI/CD, containers, Kubernetes, feature or model lifecycle management, and production telemetry
• Knowledge of data engineering, vector stores, enterprise search, and secure integration of structured and unstructured data sources

All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy.

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as,

• a comprehensive benefits package
• incentive and recognition programs
• equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements)

No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $98,500 - $176,000 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. Together, we are shaping the future of healthcare by harnessing technology and innovation to make care simpler to navigate, more affordable and more connected for the people we serve. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels welcomed, valued, heard and respected, empowering people to bring their authentic selves to work and strengthening our collective impact through diverse talents, backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.

UnitedHealth Group and its affiliated brands are an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.

UnitedHealth Group and its affiliated brands are a drug-free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.