Vice President, Digital Engineering - Optum Consumer

Optum; Eden Prairie (MN); Remote; USD 196,000 - 338,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare technology company is seeking a seasoned engineering leader to lead the Product Engineering team for their consumer applications. This role involves defining a long-term engineering vision, ensuring product performance, and integrating AI-driven features. Candidates should have extensive experience in scaling digital products and leading diverse teams. The position offers remote work flexibility and a competitive salary range from $196,600 to $337,100 annually.

Benefits

Comprehensive benefits package

Incentive and recognition programs

401k contribution

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in senior engineering leadership.
• Experience leading matrixed, geographically dispersed engineering teams.
• Proven understanding of AI/ML integration in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Product Engineering team for the Optum App.
• Define and execute a long-term engineering vision.
• Manage delivery timelines, budgets, and team structures.

Skills

Software engineering leadership

Consumer-grade digital products

AI/ML integration

Agile methodologies

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering

Tools

AWS

DevOps

Microservices architecture

Job description

Overview

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 talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

What Optum Stands For

Optum Serves

• Consumers – Enabling health care for 132 million individual consumers
• Care providers – Empowering nearly 130,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians, 9 out of 10 U.S. hospitals and more than 67,000 U.S. pharmacies
• Health plans – Improving performance and member health for 4 out of 5 U.S. health plans
• Employers – Engaging with nearly 9 out of 10 Fortune 100 companies
• Government – Engaging through partnerships in all 50 states and the District of Columbia
• Life sciences – Advancing clinical research with nearly 120 global life sciences

Leadership and Digital Vision

The Optum Technology Digital Leadership team is transforming Optum to be an industry-leading Consumer brand, delivering personalized digital solutions that empower direct-to-consumer digital-first experiences that educate, guide and empower consumers to the right care across all lines of business for Optum.

Role Summary

In this leadership role, you will be responsible for leading a Product Engineering team for the Optum App and making our consumer-obsessed digital vision come to life. You will lead the organization through the creation and transformation of digital experiences serving patients, health plan members, employers, and providers. This leader will design and deliver the common component technology platform as well as our next generation consumer experiences. They will be responsible for the platform and application engineering strategy, leading an integrated team focused on driving continuous, metrics-backed improvements to the digital experience through product and engineering disciplines. You will partner across Optum and external partners to oversee end-to-end digital experiences.

Candidates for this role need to be seasoned engineering leaders with deep expertise in digital product delivery, have proven experience designing and executing on multi-brand and/or line of business mobile and web properties, deep understanding of direct-to-consumer digital products and ecosystems, and how to optimize cost and reuse.

You will enjoy the flexibility to work remotely from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges.

Primary Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership
• Define and execute a long-term engineering vision aligned with the company’s digital health strategy and growth goals
• Build, lead, and scale a high-performing global engineering organization with a culture of innovation, accountability, and inclusion
• Recruit and mentor senior engineering leaders, fostering both technical and people management capabilities

• Consumer Application Excellence
• Lead the development of robust, scalable, secure, and user-friendly consumer-facing applications accessed by millions of users
• Ensure product performance, reliability, and uptime meet the highest standards for public-facing systems
• Drive technical decision-making that enables speed, scalability, and flexibility across the stack

• AI & Data Integration
• Oversee the integration of AI/ML-driven features (e.g., personalized recommendations, NLP, intelligent triage) into consumer products
• Partner with data science and product teams to deliver data-informed user experiences that support improved health outcomes
• Ensure responsible use of AI, including data ethics, explainability, and alignment with healthcare regulations

• Healthcare Compliance & Security
• Ensure all systems are designed and maintained in accordance with HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2, and other relevant regulatory standards
• Collaborate with Security, Legal, and Compliance teams to implement privacy and risk mitigation best practices
• Proactively identify and address risks related to data integrity, patient safety, and information security

• Operational & Organizational Efficiency
• Manage delivery timelines, budgets, team structures, and prioritization across complex product portfolios
• Establish and measure KPIs, engineering health metrics, and delivery benchmarks to drive continuous improvement
• Implement and evolve best-in-class software development practices, DevOps, and infrastructure operations

• Cross-functional Collaboration
• Partner closely with Product, Clinical, Security, UX, and Executive teams to ensure technical strategy supports overall business and patient-impact goals
• Act as a strategic voice for engineering in company-wide planning and decision-making

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 or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in senior engineering leadership roles
• Proven track record building and scaling consumer-grade digital products with millions of users (ideally in healthcare, wellness, fintech, or e-commerce)
• Experience leading matrixed, geographically dispersed engineering teams across multiple time zones
• Proven understanding of AI/ML integration in production environments (especially within consumer-facing products)
• Demonstrated expertise in Agile methods, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), microservices architecture, DevOps, and application security
• Excellent communication, influence, leadership, and stakeholder management skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experienced Product Engineering leader
• Experience building at scale GenAI solutions in production environments
• Healthcare industry experiences

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). The salary for this role will range from $196,600 to $337,100 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. UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and drug-free workplace.