Principal AI / Machine Learning Data Engineer

UnitedHealth Group seeks a seasoned Principal AI / Machine Learning Data Engineer to shape how the organization leverages large-scale unstructured data for advanced analytics and Generative AI. This role sits at the intersection of data engineering and AI, delivering production-grade data platforms and scalable AI capabilities from ingestion to deployment. Based in Eden Prairie, MN with remote options, the position asks for hands-on leadership in building data-driven solutions that power enterprise analytics and AI initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and data platforms supporting analytics, machine learning, and AI use cases
• Build and optimize ingestion frameworks for large-scale structured and unstructured data, including streaming and event-driven sources
• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to understand evolving data and AI needs and define long-term technical solutions
• Enable and support machine learning and AI workflows, including feature engineering, data preparation, and model deployment support
• Drive strategic initiatives around Generative AI, data quality, observability, lineage, and governance
• Develop and maintain frameworks that support rapid experimentation and deployment of AI/ML solutions
• Introduce and evolve best practices in data modeling, orchestration, testing, and monitoring
• Identify and champion opportunities for platform scalability, performance optimization, and cost efficiency
• Collaborate with product, analytics, and infrastructure teams to deliver high-impact data and AI solutions
• Build and maintain reusable parsing, enrichment, analytic, and service libraries to accelerate delivery across teams
• Work under time-sensitive conditions while ensuring thoroughness
• Maintain high ethical standards and confidentiality
• Build and operate production data platforms and pipelines across batch and streaming workloads
• Engage in hands-on engineering in Python and SQL; work with JVM languages (Java/Scala) within Spark ecosystems
• Implement distributed processing and lakehouse/warehouse patterns (e.g., Spark/PySpark, Databricks, Snowflake)
• Build pipelines for OCR, document parsing, and text extraction from image-based or scanned data sources
• Enable Generative AI solutions in production (eg, retrieval-augmented generation), including retrieval patterns and evaluation/monitoring practices
• Adopt knowledge-centric data approaches (metadata-driven systems, entity resolution, graph concepts) to improve discoverability
• Emphasize data quality, observability, and monitoring through profiling, validation, alerting, and reliability improvements
• Orchestrate, implement CI/CD, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code (Airflow, GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Kubernetes)
• Work in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, and/or GCP), securely handling sensitive data (PII/PHI) with compliance partners
• Lead through influence, mentor engineers, and translate ambiguous problems into scalable technical roadmaps

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
• 5+ years designing, building, and operating scalable data pipelines and platforms (batch + streaming)
• 2+ years deploying Generative AI solutions to production (e.g., RAG, LLM-powered pipelines, semantic search)
• Strong hands-on development in Python and SQL, with experience in Spark/PySpark and Databricks (or similar distributed platforms)
• Experience building ingestion and processing frameworks for unstructured data (OCR, documents, images), including parsing and enrichment
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), DevOps/CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code, including secure handling of sensitive data (PII/PHI)
• Proven ability to design scalable solutions, implement data quality/observability practices, and collaborate across stakeholders

Technologies

• Python
• SQL
• Spark
• PySpark
• Java
• Scala
• Databricks
• Snowflake
• AWS
• Azure
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Kafka
• Kinesis
• Event Hubs
• Airflow
• GitHub Actions
• Docker
• Terraform
• Kubernetes
• Delta Lake
• Plotly
• Seaborn
• Chartjs
• Great Expectations
• Deequ

Benefits

• comprehensive benefits package
• incentive and recognition programs
• equity stock purchase
• 401k contribution

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, including managed data services
• Experience with streaming and event-driven architectures (Kafka, Kinesis, Event Hubs)
• Experience with data quality and validation frameworks (Great Expectations, Deequ) and/or data observability tooling
• Experience enabling MLOps practices (feature stores, model registries, experiment tracking, deployment automation)
• Experience with lakehouse architectures, Delta Lake, and advanced Spark optimization/performance tuning
• Experience with data visualization tools and libraries such as Plotly, seaborn, and Chartjs
• Experience with machine learning and predictive analytics
• Familiarity with security and privacy concepts for data platforms (least privilege, PII/PHI handling) and working with compliance partners
• Solid hands-on engineering in Python and SQL; familiarity with JVM languages (Java/Scala) in Spark ecosystems

Application Deadline

This posting will remain open for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.