Senior Backend Engineer – Remote (Python & APIs)

Optum; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 92,000 - 164,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Equity stock plan

401(k) contribution

Job summary

Optum is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join its Identity Management initiatives. You will design, build, test, deploy, and operate scalable APIs, microservices, and data-intensive backend services using Python, PySpark, and cloud-native tech.

You’ll work remotely within the U.S. and some office presence may be required in certain locations. The role emphasizes secure software delivery, observability, and automation across CI/CD pipelines.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience building and operating enterprise applications, APIs, or microservices.
• 5+ years of Python experience including OOP, packaging, automation, and maintainable coding practices.
• 3+ years creating RESTful APIs with API specs, validation, auth, versioning, and docs.
• 3+ years PySpark for distributed processing and performance tuning.
• 2+ years Azure Databricks or similar data platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, testing, deployment, and support of backend apps, RESTful APIs, and microservices.
• Build production-quality services using Python and API frameworks; set engineering standards.
• Architect data-intensive components with PySpark, Azure Databricks, and Data Factory.
• Own API design standards including contracts, models, error handling, versioning, and docs.
• Implement resilient microservice patterns with retries, timeouts, and idempotency.
• Create automated tests and integrate quality checks into CI/CD pipelines.
• Implement logging, metrics, tracing, and dashboards for observability and reliability.
• Lead architecture reviews, code reviews, and mentoring.

Skills

Python

PySpark

API design

Distributed systems

Leadership

Mentoring

Cloud basics

Security basics

Tools

PySpark

Azure Databricks

Azure Data Factory

OpenAPI/Swagger

Job description

Optum is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join its Identity Management initiatives. You will design, build, test, deploy, and operate scalable APIs, microservices, and data-intensive backend services using Python, PySpark, and cloud-native tech.

You’ll work remotely within the U.S. and some office presence may be required in certain locations. The role emphasizes secure software delivery, observability, and automation across CI/CD pipelines.