Sr Director of Product Management - State Gov Program Operations - Remote

UnitedHealth Group; Eden Prairie (MN); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Optum State Government Solutions’ Program Operations group seeks a Director of Product Management to lead strategy, market positioning, and portfolio execution for state Medicaid and HHS programs.

This role blends product leadership with government program expertise to shape capabilities, investment priorities, and go-to-market plans across cross-functional teams, delivering measurable outcomes for customers and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the Program Operations product, portfolio, and market strategy aligned to SGS growth, margin, customer, capital, and domain-plan priorities
• Define where Program Operations should grow, scale, fix, partner, acquire, package for reuse, maintain, or retire investment
• Build a multi-year roadmap tied to state Medicaid demand, known procurements, renewal and rebid priorities, account expansion, customer outcomes, technology feasibility, delivery maturity, and financial performance
• Use state Medicaid and HHS market insight to identify emerging needs, pre-procurement opportunities, partnership options, advisory relationships, and areas where SGS should shape demand before formal procurements are released
• Partner with Growth, market and account leadership, government affairs where appropriate, and solution-design teams to define the Program Operations go-to-market playbook, target-state priorities, win themes, competitive differentiation, and pursuit support model
• Translate CMS, state agency, customer, regulatory, procurement, and operational requirements into product strategy, roadmap decisions, investment choices, and measurable outcomes
• Develop business cases, pricing logic, margin-ramp assumptions, capital recommendations, commercialization plans, and build / buy / partner recommendations for new and existing offerings
• Rationalize the existing portfolio to reduce complexity, improve investment focus, strengthen reuse, and improve profitability
• Partner with Technology and Engineering to deliver secure, scalable, cloud-ready, government-compliant capabilities and identify modernization, technical-debt, AI, automation, and platform-reuse opportunities
• Partner with Operations, implementation, and client leadership to ensure offerings are deliverable, adopted, measurable, and connected to customer outcomes
• Support customer advisory conversations, industry forums, conference strategy, thought leadership, and market-facing points of view where appropriate to strengthen SGS credibility and market access
• Establish product governance, KPIs, and operating cadence across adoption, customer health, delivery performance

Job description

Optum Insight is improving the flow of health data and information to create a more connected system. We remove friction and drive alignment between care providers and payers, and ultimately consumers. Our deep expertise in the industry and innovative technology empower us to help organizations reduce costs while improving risk management, quality and revenue growth. Ready to help us deliver results that improve lives? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

The Director of Product Management - Program Operations will lead product strategy, market positioning, and portfolio execution for the Program Operations business within Optum State Government Solutions. This leader will help transform a $95M business into a more focused, market-connected, financially disciplined, and scalable portfolio serving state Medicaid and Health & Human Services agencies.

This role requires more than traditional product management. The Director must understand how state Medicaid and HHS agencies think, buy, operate, and modernize. The leader will use direct market insight, state and federal program knowledge, customer relationships, industry engagement, and product discipline to identify where Program Operations is going, where SGS has the right to win, and which capabilities should be built, bought, partnered, scaled, reshaped, or retired.

Working across Product, Growth, Operations, Technology, Finance, implementation, account leadership, and external market stakeholders, this leader will convert state problems and market signals into product strategy, investment priorities, go-to-market plans, differentiated offerings, and measurable business outcomes.

The Director will provide strategic product leadership for SGS's Program Operations pillar, focused on state Medicaid and HHS program administration, operational modernization, service access, provider and constituent experience, compliance-driven workflows, and technology-enabled service delivery.

The portfolio may include capabilities related to provider and constituent operations, service access and program workflows, case and care management operations, operational quality and compliance, customer-service operations, analytics-enabled oversight, and adjacent state-administered health and human services workflows.

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:

• Develop and execute the Program Operations product, portfolio, and market strategy aligned to SGS growth, margin, customer, capital, and domain-plan priorities
• Define where Program Operations should grow, scale, fix, partner, acquire, package for reuse, maintain, or retire investment
• Build a multi-year roadmap tied to state Medicaid demand, known procurements, renewal and rebid priorities, account expansion, customer outcomes, technology feasibility, delivery maturity, and financial performance
• Use state Medicaid and HHS market insight to identify emerging needs, pre-procurement opportunities, partnership options, advisory relationships, and areas where SGS should shape demand before formal procurements are released
• Partner with Growth, market and account leadership, government affairs where appropriate, and solution-design teams to define the Program Operations go-to-market playbook, target-state priorities, win themes, competitive differentiation, and pursuit support model
• Translate CMS, state agency, customer, regulatory, procurement, and operational requirements into product strategy, roadmap decisions, investment choices, and measurable outcomes
• Develop business cases, pricing logic, margin-ramp assumptions, capital recommendations, commercialization plans, and build / buy / partner recommendations for new and existing offerings
• Rationalize the existing portfolio to reduce complexity, improve investment focus, strengthen reuse, and improve profitability
• Partner with Technology and Engineering to deliver secure, scalable, cloud-ready, government-compliant capabilities and identify modernization, technical-debt, AI, automation, and platform-reuse opportunities
• Partner with Operations, implementation, and client leadership to ensure offerings are deliverable, adopted, measurable, and connected to customer outcomes
• Support customer advisory conversations, industry forums, conference strategy, thought leadership, and market-facing points of view where appropriate to strengthen SGS credibility and market access
• Establish product governance, KPIs, and operating cadence across adoption, customer health, delivery performance