Principal Data Scientist - Credit Risk (Remote)

UnitedHealth-Grou; Salt Lake City (UT); Remote; USD 113,000 - 193,000; Full time

Job summary

UnitedHealth Group is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to lead predictive credit models for lending products in a remote, US-wide role. You will translate complex data into actionable risk insights while partnering with Data Engineering, Product, Compliance and Risk teams.

The role emphasizes interpretability, regulatory alignment with FCRA and ECOA, and end-to-end ownership from prototyping to production, with ongoing monitoring in a dynamic fintech-like environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years experience working with Python or R and SQL; familiarity with cloud environments like AWS, GCP, or Snowflake
• 5+ years of experience working with lending lifecycle and credit risk KPIs (e.g., delinquency, charge-offs, approval rates, ROI, CAC/payback)
• 4+ years of experience in credit risk modeling, ideally at a fintech, neobank, or consumer lending startup for commercial line of credit products
• 4+ years of experience with both traditional statistical techniques (e.g., logistic regression, scorecards) and modern machine learning

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain predictive models for application and behavioral scoring, PD, LGD, and early risk detection
• Design models for underwriting, fraud detection, credit line management, and collections strategies
• Create advanced features using alternative data sources
• Evaluate new data vendors and enrich internal datasets to improve model performance
• Take models from prototype to production in partnership with Data Engineering and Product teams
• Build interpretable and compliant models aligned with FCRA, ECOA, and fair lending standards
• Own model monitoring, validation, reporting and back testing, regularly recalibrating for shifts in macroeconomic conditions or borrower behavior
• Work with Risk, Product, Compliance and Finance teams to integrate model outputs into strategy
• Communicate insights clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Skills

Python/R

SQL

Cloud platforms

Credit risk modeling

Statistics & ML

Underwriting risk KPIs

Tools

AWS

GCP

Snowflake

Job description

UnitedHealth Group is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to lead predictive credit models for lending products in a remote, US-wide role. You will translate complex data into actionable risk insights while partnering with Data Engineering, Product, Compliance and Risk teams.

The role emphasizes interpretability, regulatory alignment with FCRA and ECOA, and end-to-end ownership from prototyping to production, with ongoing monitoring in a dynamic fintech-like environment.