Senior Principal Software Engineer

Requisition Number: 2346818
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.
Primary Responsibilities:

• CI/CD & Automation
  • Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines for build, test, and deployment automation
  • Improve deployment frequency, reliability, and rollback capabilities
  • Integrate quality gates, security scans, and automated testing into pipelines
• Infrastructure & Cloud Management
  • Provision and manage cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • Ensure high availability, scalability, and disaster recovery
  • Optimize cloud resource utilization and costs
• Containerization & Orchestration
  • Containerize applications using Docker or equivalent tools
  • Manage container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes
  • Implement deployment strategies (rolling, blue-green, canary)
• Configuration & Environment Management
  • Automate system and application configuration
  • Maintain consistency across development, testing, and production environments
  • Prevent configuration drift
• Security & Compliance (DevSecOps)
  • Embed security best practices into CI/CD pipelines
  • Manage secrets, certificates, and access controls
  • Perform vulnerability scanning and remediation
• Collaboration & Continuous Improvement
  • Work closely with development and QA teams to improve developer experience
  • Promote DevOps best practices, automation, and reliability engineering
  • Document systems, processes, and operational runbooks
• AI Focus
  • Design innovative AI solutions to various business problems, utilizing cutting-edge AI technologies like Generative AI, Large Language Models, RAG, Reinforcement learning, Agentic AI
  • Communicating analytics model behavior/results to Stakeholders
  • Carrying out technical risk analysis and reliability assessments
• AI User Responsibilities
  • Uses GitHub Copilot to speed up the creation of boilerplate code
  • Uses M365 Copilot to recap meetings and draft emails
  • Uses a chat-based AI tool to debug code
  • Uses GenAI to create sample test data or test cases
  • Uses StoryCraft to streamline the creation of user stories
• 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:

• Undergraduate degree in applicable area of expertise or equivalent experience
• 15+ years of experience as a software development engineer or equivalent hands-on experience producing code for production systems
• 8+ experience working with Public Cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP, beyond basic IaaS functionality
• 5+ years of experience programming in at least one high-level language (Python, Golang, JavaScript, etc.)
• 5+ years of engineering experience in building infrastructure using code and repeatable designs (IaC)
• 5+ years of experience with containers and orchestration platforms, such as Kubernetes
• 5+ years of experience in automating CI/CD using Jenkins [Pipeline as Code], GitHub actions, or similar tools, along with proficiency in source control systems such as Git
• 5+ years of experience leading / working with Agile team

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proven excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills
• Experience with containers and orchestration platforms, such as Kubernetes
• Experience with Cloud Computing (AWS/Azure/GCP), DevOps tools and automation using Python or any other scripting language
• Knowledge of API design and lifecycle management (REST, etc.)
• Familiarity with inter-service messaging and stream discovery (SQS, Pub/Sub Kafka, etc.)
• Proficiency in instrumentation, logging, and tracing tools (Prometheus, CloudWatch, Stack Driver, Azure Monitor, etc.)
• Proficient in algorithms, data structures, object-oriented programming, and system design
• Proven evidence-based approach to decision-making and problem-solving
• Proven design mindset with the ability to construct scalable, distributed services
• Proven expertise in data storage, caching, and optimization (SQL and NoSQL databases)

AI Expectation:

• Good understanding of LLMs and generative models
• Solid conceptual grasp of what LLM's are how they work and different types of generative models(GPT, DALL-E, diffusion models)
• Prompt Engineering
• How to effectively create prompts to get desired output from generative models
• Working with Generative AI API's and Frameworks
• Hands on experience with API's like OpenAI, Google Gemini and Hugging face
• Familiarity with frameworks like Lang Chain, AutoGen and Microsoft Copilot Studio etc.
• Proficiency with AI-Assisted Development Tools
• Experience in using Tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf/Amazon Code Whisperer etc.

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.