Senior Manager, AI/ML Engineering - Remote

UnitedHealth Group; Eden Prairie (MN); Hybrid; Confidential; Full time

Job summary

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum unit seeks a Senior Manager of AI/ML Engineering to lead the enterprise AI layer for digital consumer apps. You will direct strategy, design, evaluation, and delivery of AI components, including LLM workflows, RAG pipelines, and copilots, at enterprise scale.

This remote leadership role requires guiding engineering talent to ensure AI capabilities are useful, safe, and measurable. Eligible Minneapolis or DC-area hires may work in-office at least four days per week.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related technical field, OR 4+ years of equivalent software/AI engineering experience in lieu of a degree.
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, data science, machine learning, or AI engineering.
• 4+ years of practical engineering experience building and deploying production AI applications (including LLMs, RAG patterns, vector search, embeddings, prompt engineering, and agent frameworks)
• 4+ years of strong hands‑on Python engineering experience, including model APIs, orchestration frameworks, data pipelines, and evaluation tooling
• 3+ years of technical leadership or engineering management experience
• 3+ years of experience designing testable, governable AI workflows and applying Responsible AI practices (mitigating hallucination risks, bias/fairness concerns, and model safety risks)

Responsibilities

• Lead, manage, and empower a high-performing engineering team responsible for designing, building, and deploying the intelligence layer for digital consumer applications
• Direct the architectural strategy and technical execution for LLM workflows, prompt chains, agentic behaviors, RAG patterns, copilots, and classification/summarization systems aligned to business goals and risk profiles
• Establish engineering standards, prompt strategies, tool-calling patterns, and safety guardrails to ensure AI solutions are explainable, testable, and governable across the enterprise
• Drive team delivery and continuous improvement using enterprise-approved AI tools to streamline workflows, automate complex technical tasks, and optimize engineering velocity
• Oversee the implementation of evaluation datasets, scoring rubrics, model-performance testing, and failure-mode analysis to continuously improve output quality, accuracy, latency, and cost efficiency
• Evaluate emerging AI/ML trends, industry advancements, and novel architectures to inform solution design, technology roadmaps, and strategic innovation
• Partner with Data Engineering leadership to ensure AI applications integrate with trusted, governed, and enterprise-grade data pipelines
• Collaborate with cross-functional executive leadership, QA, Responsible AI, security, privacy, compliance, and architecture teams to ensure AI components fulfill enterprise compliance and risk standards
• Champion production readiness, model observability, drift monitoring, and thorough technical documentation to enable steady-state supportability
• Mentor, coach, and develop engineering talent, setting clear performance goals, conducting reviews, and cultivating an inclusive culture of engineering excellence

Skills

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

B.S. in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Python

Job description

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.

As a Senior Manager of AI/ML Engineering within the Chief Digital Office, Consumer Engineering team, you will lead and manage the engineering team responsible for owning the intelligence layer of our digital solutions. In this remote leadership role, you will direct the strategy, design, evaluation, and operational delivery of enterprise AI components-including LLM workflows, RAG pipelines, agentic behaviors, classifiers, copilots, and AI evaluation frameworks. You will guide engineering talent to ensure all AI capabilities are useful, measurable, safe, performant, and fit for enterprise scale.

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, manage, and empower a high-performing engineering team responsible for designing, building, and deploying the intelligence layer for digital consumer applications
• Direct the architectural strategy and technical execution for LLM workflows, prompt chains, agentic behaviors, RAG patterns, copilots, and classification/summarization systems aligned to business goals and risk profiles
• Establish engineering standards, prompt strategies, tool-calling patterns, and safety guardrails to ensure AI solutions are explainable, testable, and governable across the enterprise
• Drive team delivery and continuous improvement using enterprise-approved AI tools to streamline workflows, automate complex technical tasks, and optimize engineering velocity
• Oversee the implementation of evaluation datasets, scoring rubrics, model-performance testing, and failure-mode analysis to continuously improve output quality, accuracy, latency, and cost efficiency
• Evaluate emerging AI/ML trends, industry advancements, and novel architectures to inform solution design, technology roadmaps, and strategic innovation
• Partner with Data Engineering leadership to ensure AI applications integrate with trusted, governed, and enterprise-grade data pipelines
• Collaborate with cross-functional executive leadership, QA, Responsible AI, security, privacy, compliance, and architecture teams to ensure AI components fulfill enterprise compliance and risk standards
• Champion production readiness, model observability, drift monitoring, and thorough technical documentation to enable steady-state supportability
• Mentor, coach, and develop engineering talent, setting clear performance goals, conducting reviews, and cultivating an inclusive culture of engineering excellence

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:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or a related technical field, OR 4+ years of equivalent software/AI engineering experience in lieu of a degree
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, data science, machine learning, or AI engineering
• 4+ years of practical engineering experience building and deploying production AI applications (including LLMs, RAG patterns, vector search, embeddings, prompt engineering, and agent frameworks)
• 4+ years of strong hands‑on Python engineering experience, including model APIs, orchestration frameworks, data pipelines, and evaluation tooling
• 3+ years of technical leadership or engineering management experience leading and developing engineering teams
• 3+ years of experience designing testable, governable AI workflows and applying Responsible AI practices (mitigating hallucination risks, bias/fairness concerns, and model safety risks)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in building and scaling LLM-enabled applications and copilots within enterprise settings
• Demonstrated experience establishing controlled testing, evaluation frameworks, scoring rubrics, and model monitoring prior to broad rollout
• Experience developing AI/ML solutions within healthcare, consumer digital platforms, or large-scale consumer applications
• Proven professional background as an ML Engineer, AI Engineer, Applied Scientist, Data Scientist with engineering depth, or Forward‑Deployed Engineer with AI specialization
• Proven solid cross‑functional collaboration skills with Responsible AI, security, legal, compliance, and enterprise architecture teams

*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 $148,900 - $255,300 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 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 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 is a drug - free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.

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