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.

The AAV team owns Apollo, Optum South's governed data spine - ingesting from eight source systems (EDW, EMR, DataRAP, Atlas, Zephyr, ePRG, Medispan, ADT) and distributing intelligence across HEDIS quality, risk, admits/readmits, care & value, and reporting domains. We're looking for a Lead Data Engineer to own the cloud data architecture across Databricks and Snowflake, set engineering standards for the pipeline layer, and lead the team through Apollo's continued cloud migration and scale-out.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Own architectural decisions across Databricks and Snowflake - Delta Lake design, Unity Catalog governance, Gold-layer schema standards, and Bronze/Silver/Gold pipeline patterns
• Lead and harden Apollo's cloud migration, building on the current cloud footprint toward full production stability
• Set engineering standards for pipeline design, testing, orchestration (DAGs), and CI/CD across the data platform
• Design and review data models and pipelines feeding downstream consumers - Horizon Compass, AI/ML pipelines, and reporting tools
• Mentor and grow data engineers on the team; act as technical escalation point for hard pipeline and architecture problems
• Partner directly with the Director of Data Services on technical roadmap, and represent data engineering in cross-functional and leadership discussions
• Help scope and de-risk Apollo's expansion to Optum West, East, and Mid-East regions from a data architecture standpoint
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Graduate degree or equivalent experience
• Cloud / Databricks / Snowflake
• Expert-level production experience with Databricks - Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, job orchestration, performance tuning at scale
• Solid production Snowflake experience - schema design, performance/cost optimization, and integration patterns between Snowflake and Databricks
• Deep cloud platform experience (Azure preferred) - storage, compute, networking, and security fundamentals as they apply to a data platform
• Experience as a technical lead - setting standards, doing architecture review, unblocking other engineers
• Proven track record owning Bronze/Silver/Gold or equivalent medallion-architecture pipelines end to end Leadership
• Proven to mentor without micromanaging; grows engineers rather than just directing them
• Proven comfortable being the technical voice in front of non-engineering stakeholders and leadership
• Judgment
• Experience working in a regulated or compliance-sensitive data environment (healthcare a strong plus)
• Proven pragmatic about technical debt and migration risk - knows when to stabilize vs. when to push forward
• Proven solid SQL and data modeling fundamentals underneath the tooling

Preferred Qualifications:

• Direct healthcare, HEDIS, or claims data experience
• Experience leading a cloud migration from an on-prem or legacy platform (e.g., SQL Server)
• Experience scaling a data platform across multiple business units or regions
• Proven exposure to Databricks AI functions ( ai_summarize() , ai_classify() ) or supporting AI/ML pipelines downstream of the data layer

Why This Role

Apollo's cloud migration is under control and moving toward production stability, with active expansion interest from Optum West, East, and Mid-East regions. This role owns the data architecture that scale-out depends on, with direct visibility into leadership and real ownership over how the platform evolves.

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.