[Hiring] Senior AI/ML Applied Scientist @UnitedHealth Group

Role Description

Optum AI is UnitedHealth Group’s enterprise AI team. We are AI/ML scientists and engineers with deep expertise in AI/ML engineering for health care. We develop AI/ML solutions for the highest impact opportunities across UnitedHealth Group businesses including UnitedHealthcare, Optum Financial, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx.

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

• Have impact at scale: We have the data and resources to make an impact at scale. When our solutions are deployed, they have the potential to make health care system work better for everyone.
• Do ground-breaking work: Many of our current projects involve cutting edge ML, NLP and LLM techniques. Generative AI methods for working with structured and unstructured health care data are continuously being developed and improved.
• Partner with world-class experts on innovative solutions: Our team members are developing novel AI/ML solutions to business challenges, including opportunities to file patents and publish papers.

Primary Responsibilities

• Apply advanced statistical, predictive modeling, and Agentic AI to optimize healthcare and digital experiences.
• Collaborate with the Responsible Use of AI (RUAI) team to ensure compliance with company policies and standards.
• Research innovative approaches for developing and evaluating Agentic AI solutions.
• Develop code and model documentation, patents, and publications in scientific conferences and journals.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to develop robust data pipelines of MLOps procedures for new solutions.
• Stay up to date with latest technologies and literature.

Qualifications

• PhD in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field.
• 3+ years of AI/ML experience (LLM, NLP).
• Proficiency in AI/ML engineering development with Python.
• Expertise in Large Language Modeling and Transformer Architectures with experience in prompt engineering, evaluation, and LLM optimization.
• Experience with LLM frameworks and/or NLP approaches such as text embedding and text classification.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI Cloud services like Azure ML, Databricks, Azure OpenAI, or similar services in GCP / AWS.
• Experience with Snowflake and other relational databases.
• Proven solid publication record in top tier AI/ML/NLP venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CHIL, etc.).
• Proven solid technical communication skills.

Requirements

• All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package.
• Incentive and recognition programs.
• Equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (subject to eligibility requirements).

Application Deadline

This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected.