Senior AI or ML Engineer - Hybrid in Austin, TX, Chicago, IL, or Minneapolis, MN

Requisition Number: 2325519
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.
We're excited to share an opportunity to join a cutting-edge project involving the development and enhancement of a voice-based bot platform built on top of an LLM (Large Language Model) framework. The scope of work includes collaborating on a highly scalable, consumer-facing system designed for production environments with significant traffic. Ideal candidates should be enthusiastic about emerging technologies in the LLM space, as this role offers hands-on experience with advanced tools and the chance to explore innovative solutions within a rapidly evolving AI landscape.
If you are located in Austin, Chicago or Minneapolis, you will have the flexibility to work remotely*, as well as work in the office 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:

• Help design and develop the next generation of NLP, ML & AI products, and services for healthcare
• Develop machine learning and deep learning models and systems in domains including, but not limited to: NLP, NLU, NLG, SLU and multidimensional time series forecasting among others
• Exposure in RAG, LangChain, VectorDBs
• Ability to Quantize, Optimize GenAI models
• Manage NLP & ML models lifecycle for a suite of products
• Run large complex proof-of-concepts for the healthcare business
• Manage prioritization and technology work for building NLP, ML & AI solutions
• Lead the full end-to-end machine learning development process including data ingestion and preparation, feature engineering, analysis and modeling, model deployment, performance tracking and documentation
• Establish best practices for end-to-end deep learning and machine learning development cycle to ensure rigor in process and quality in outcome
• Work with a great deal of autonomy to find solutions to complex problems
• 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

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:

• 5+ years of experience in delivering AI/ML projects in a production environment, preferably consumer-facing and high-traffic systems
• 5+ years of client-side application development, with a solid track record of building scalable and performant user-facing applications
• 5+ years of hands-on coding experience in JavaScript or Python-must be comfortable writing production-quality code
• 3+ years of hands-on development experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), including prompt engineering, fine-tuning, or custom LLM orchestration
• 2+ years of experience working with agentic AI architectures, including task decomposition, memory management, and autonomous agent workflows

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with AWS Bedrock, including deploying and orchestrating foundation models within a managed environment
• Hands-on experience integrating conversational AI platforms like Amazon Lex V2 with backend services or bots, especially for voice-based or multi-turn conversations
• Familiarity with AWS Lambda for building scalable, serverless microservices that integrate with LLM workflows or bot architectures
• Experience with Amazon Kendra, Amazon SageMaker, or AWS Step Functions is a plus, especially in the context of LLM-powered knowledge retrieval or orchestration
• Understanding of event-driven architecture and serverless patterns using AWS SNS/SQS, API Gateway, and DynamoDB
• Experience deploying and monitoring LLM-enabled bots in Amazon Connect or other customer engagement platforms
• Experience in deploying scalable solutions to complex problems, from defining the problem, implementing the solution, and launching the new product successfully
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines on AWS (e.g., CodePipeline, CodeBuild) for automating model updates and bot deployments
• Proven skills in the following:
  • NLP, NLU, NLI
  • Models: GPT, Llama, Mistral
  • Model Optimization
  • Retrieval & Ranking, RAG, RAGAS

*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 $89,900 to $160,600 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
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.