[Remote] Data Engineer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. UnitedHealth Group's Optum delivers technology-enabled care, pharmacy benefits, data, and resources to help millions of people live healthier lives. The Data Engineer will lead the architecture, development, and optimization of large-scale data platforms, pipelines, warehouses, and AI-powered solutions while guiding engineering teams and advancing data governance, quality, and strategy.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement scalable data platforms, pipelines, and ETL/ELT workflows
• Lead end‑to‑end data engineering efforts, ensuring reliability, performance, and cost‑efficient data systems
• Mentor and guide junior and senior data engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaboration
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams (analytics, product, engineering, business) to align data solutions with business goals
• Build, optimize, and maintain robust data pipelines using Python, SQL, and Apache Airflow
• Manage large-scale data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration frameworks
• Optimize database queries, stored procedures, and schema design in MSSQL and other SQL/NoSQL systems
• Develop and manage cloud‑native data platforms using AWS services (S3, Glue, Lambda, RDS, Redshift, EC2, Step Functions, etc.)
• Ensure high availability, disaster recovery, and monitoring of critical data workflows
• Implement CI/CD, infrastructure‑as‑code, and DevOps practices for data engineering workloads
• Design and enhance enterprise data warehouses and data marts following industry best practices
• Drive dimensional modeling, data partitioning, performance tuning, and metadata management
• Ensure consistency and quality across analytical datasets and data sources
• Establish data quality frameworks, lineage tracking, validation checks, and documentation
• Implement governance standards including security, compliance, and access control
• Partner with business stakeholders to define and enforce master data and reference data strategies
• Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered solutions to address complex business challenges with emphasis on responsible use of AI

Skills

• Bachelor's degree in CS or IT related field or equivalent experience in Lieu of degree
• 6+ years of experience in Data Engineering, with at least 3+ years in a senior/principal‑level role
• 4+ years of experience in MSSQL-query optimization, indexing, stored procedures, performance tuning
• 4+ years of experience in Data Warehousing, ETL/ELT, and big‑data processing
• 3+ years of hands‑on experience with AWS Cloud for data architecture and pipeline development
• 3+ years of experience in Python for data engineering (Pandas, PySpark, etc.)
• 2+ years of extensive experience with Airflow for workflow orchestration
• 2+ years of experience in data management principles: governance, quality, lineage, and security
• Excellent leadership, communication, and cross‑team collaboration skills
• Ability to translate business needs into scalable technical designs

Benefits

• The flexibility to telecommute from anywhere within the U.S.
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Incentive and recognition programs
• Equity stock purchase
• 401k contribution
• Career development opportunities

Company Overview