Optum Tech is a global leader in health care innovation. Our teams develop cutting-edge solutions that help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. From advanced data analytics and AI to cybersecurity, we use innovative approaches to solve some of health care’s most complex challenges. Your contributions here have the potential to change lives. Ready to build the next breakthrough? Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. The Principal Data Engineer will join the Surest/Optum Data Engineering Enablement organization, a team responsible for developing shared frameworks, architectural patterns, standards, and cross plan data capabilities used by all Data Engineering delivery teams. This role requires deep expertise in cloud native engineering, distributed data processing, and healthcare data domains. You will design, build, and optimize scalable data solutions that span the full health plan ecosystem—including eligibility, claims, provider, pharmacy, utilization, pricing, and member experience data. This role plays a critical part in advancing enterprise data modernization, improving platform efficiency, and enabling teams across the organization to develop high quality, governed, secure data solutions. Principal Data Engineers include broad engineering responsibilities across analysis, design, development, testing, standards, tooling, and influencing organizational data strategy. You’ll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. 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: - Partner in the design, development and communication of technology patterns and standards needed to manage Surest healthcare data - Provide technical leadership, guidance and training to team of data engineers on individual and group levels - Implement data processes and pipelines which incorporate product requirements with data storage, lifecycle, accessibility, performance, and security standards - Solve complex data development issues within data development software - Support Agile development practices, including refining user stories and collaborating with product owners and stakeholders - Develop large scale, flexible data pipelines to efficiently process health care data supporting all aspects of a health plan - Work with peers across Surest to ensure alignment on data capabilities and software development lifecycle (SDLC) 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: - Undergraduate degree in engineering, mathematics, computer science, software development, or related technical field, or equivalent experience - 10+ years of solid SQL or NoSQL query experience - 5+ years designing and implementing efficient, end-to-end, flexible data pipelines - 5+ years with both batch and near real-time data architectures - 3+ years of PySpark & Python data development experience - Experience implementing parallel processing data strategies - Experience integrating strategies for data pipeline introspection at sca - Experience working with Data Lake or Delta Lake architecture - Proven solid analytical thinking, creativity, and willingness to be hands-on - Proven solid drive to evolve development efficiency, data quality, and pipeline improvements - Demonstrated excellent problem-solving, documentation, teamwork, and communication skills - Proven superior attention to detail - Experience working in Agile Development Framework Preferred Qualifications: - Post-graduate degree in engineering, mathematics, computer science, software development, or other technical field - Experience working with healthcare data - Experience developing and operating Databricks jobs as data pipelines using pyspark *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 $112,700 to $193,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable. Application Deadline: This will be posted 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. 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.

• Join a well-established organisation going through a significant data modernisation programme • Work within a collaborative data team, partnering closely with data architects and designers to turn data models into production-ready solutions • Develop data products from designer-provided models, ensuring data quality standards are met throughout • Deploy pipelines into scheduled workflows

• Lead a small delivery team and act as a player-coach by owning the most complex data transformations and modeling work, while reviewing and guiding contractor contributions. • Keep work unblocked, well-scoped, and on track to ensure consistent delivery of momentum. • Continue building and refining analytics foundations driven by Gold-layer data models. • Design and implement Medallion architecture transformations (Bronze → Silver → Gold). • Ensure Gold-layer outputs are well-modeled, performant, and consistently consumable by an external analytics engine. • Improve the reliability, clarity, and maintainability of existing pipelines. • Partner with the Engineering Manager to execute an approved Data Warehouse Unification Plan RFC. • Plan and deliver sprint-based execution, with execution as the primary focus given the RFC is already defined. • Work across multiple Databricks instances as part of a GDPR-first data strategy. • Surface execution risks, sequencing concerns, and dependencies early to support successful delivery. • Translate engineering specifications into clear, scoped tickets, logical sprint plans, and well-sequenced workstreams. • Assign work appropriately across contractors based on skill level and complexity. • Implement complex Spark and Databricks transformations directly as needed. • Review pull requests and uphold quality standards across all delivered work. • Communicate progress, blockers, and clarity needs clearly and proactively with stakeholders. • Maintain delivery momentum without unnecessary process overhead.

About the Role We are looking for a talented Senior Data Engineer to build and scale the data infrastructure that powers Torus's mission. As a core member of our data team, you'll build and maintain our modern data stack (dbt, Redshift, Airflow, Fivetran, Metabase, and Streamlit), designing and implementing scalable data pipelines that ingest, transform, and serve data from our complex ecosystem of IoT devices, grid systems, and business applications. In this role, you'll collaborate on and support the infrastructure that enables our data team to operate efficiently. You'll build real-time data pipelines that process telemetry from thousands of energy storage devices, create robust ETL workflows that ensure data quality and reliability, and develop tools that make data accessible to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Your work will directly enable machine learning models, analytics dashboards, and business intelligence that drive strategic decisions. Our products operate within complex ecosystems including IoT devices, the electrical grid, commercial and industrial buildings, and smart home systems. You'll work with high-volume streaming data, time-series sensor data, and diverse data sources to build the infrastructure that makes Torus a truly data-driven organization. Who You Are - Autonomous and ownership-oriented: You thrive with autonomy and end-to-end ownership. You take pride in owning your code, pipelines, and services from conception to production. You have strong technical judgment and the ability to span across the data stack—from pipeline development to data modeling to tooling. You have strong DevOps fundamentals and enjoy total ownership of your domain. - Collaborative architect: The team is small, so you'll be collaborating on architectural design and contributing to technical direction, not just implementing tickets. You work effectively both independently and as part of a team, actively collaborating with your data team colleagues and cross-functional partners, sharing knowledge and giving/receiving candid feedback. - Builder mindset: You strive to write elegant, maintainable code and are comfortable independently picking up new technologies to solve problems efficiently. You're passionate about building infrastructure and tools that empower data scientists, analysts, and business users to move faster and make better decisions. - Quality-focused: You have an eye for detail, good data intuition, and a passion for data quality and reliability. - Adaptable startup operator: You thrive in a startup environment with ambiguous requirements and rapidly changing priorities. If you prefer clearly defined requirements and established processes, this role may not be the right fit. If you're energized by scaling data systems and shaping how a growing company uses data, you'll excel here. You understand that our existing systems were built to solve real problems under real constraints, and you approach improvements with curiosity and respect rather than judgment. - Continuous learner: You're genuinely excited about learning new technologies and tackling unfamiliar problems. You may not check every box in our requirements, but you're confident in your ability to learn quickly and contribute meaningfully. You keep your ear to the ground for opportunities to improve data flows and aren't afraid to propose innovative solutions. - Mission-driven: You're passionate about using technology to combat climate change and transform how people consume energy. If you're someone who loves to learn, is supportive of your teammates, stays curious about where data processes can be improved, and is ready to roll up your sleeves to build better systems together—we want to hear from you, even if you don't meet every single requirement listed below. What You'll Own Data Infrastructure & Pipelines - Design, build, and maintain scalable batch and streaming data pipelines that handle high-volume IoT telemetry and business data - Develop robust ELT workflows to ingest, transform, and load data from diverse sources including APIs, databases, IoT devices, and third-party systems - Build and optimize our data warehouse using Redshift, implementing dimensional models that support analytics and machine learning use cases - Implement real-time data processing systems that enable immediate insights and rapid response to system events - Develop incremental SQL patterns in dbt for efficient data transformation Data Quality & Reliability - Build tools, processes, and pipelines to enforce, check, and manage data quality at scale - Develop monitoring and alerting systems to ensure pipeline reliability and data freshness - Create data validation frameworks and automated testing for data pipelines - Establish best practices for data governance, documentation, and lineage tracking Platform & Tools Development - Build frameworks that enable data scientists to deploy models to production efficiently - Develop self-service analytics capabilities and data access patterns for non-technical stakeholders - Create and enhance analytics tools to facilitate intuitive data consumption Infrastructure & Operations - Own the full software development lifecycle for data services, focusing on automation, testing, monitoring, and documentation - Develop and maintain infrastructure using AWS CDK and Terraform - Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for data operations - Manage cloud infrastructure on AWS (ECS, Redshift, Lambda, S3) - Support ad hoc data requests and maintain core pipeline operations Required Experience - Typically requires a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Data Science, or a related technical field and 5+ years of experience building scalable data pipelines, but we value diverse learning paths and welcome candidates who demonstrate equivalent expertise. - Strong experience building batch and streaming data pipelines using distributed processing frameworks - 3+ years of experience designing and implementing ELT pipelines for data extraction, transformation, and loading from diverse sources - Expert proficiency in Python with strong software engineering fundamentals - Advanced SQL skills and experience with relational databases and data warehousing - Hands-on experience with data warehouse modeling, including dimensional modeling and schema design - Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and infrastructure-as-code tools - Practical experience owning production data systems with DevOps fundamentals - Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration concepts - Passion for data quality, monitoring, and building reliable systems Preferred Experience - Experience with modern data stack tools: dbt, Redshift, Airflow, Fivetran, Streamlit, or similar - Hands-on experience with AWS services (ECS, Lambda, Athena, S3, EC2, VPC) - Experience with Terraform and/or AWS CDK for infrastructure as code - Experience working with IoT data, time-series data, or sensor data at scale - Familiarity with data observability and lineage tools (OpenMetadata, Monte Carlo, Great Expectations, etc.) - Experience with monitoring platforms like Datadog - Experience with CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar) - Knowledge of Kubernetes and container orchestration - Experience with authentication systems (AWS SSO, Okta, etc.) - Experience in energy systems, industrial IoT, or utilities domain - Background supporting machine learning infrastructure and MLOps practices - Experience in a high-growth startup environment - Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Windsurf, etc.) Additional Details - Background Check: All candidates are subject to a background check - Location + Travel: The role is remote based in the US. Requires occasional travel to our South Salt Lake Headquarters - Schedule: Full-Time, Salaried - Compensation: $130,000 - $170,000 (Note: We have the flexibility to hire at different levels, which may impact the corresponding pay range) - Work Authorization: Applicants must already have the legal authorization to work in the US without requiring any employer sponsorship Physical Requirements - Constantly operates a computer and other peripheral office equipment such as a printer or mouse - Ability to communicate information so others can understand. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations - Must report to work reliably and with the ability to use full and unimpaired skills and judgment to safely execute your job - Proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking English required - When on the production floor, required to don personal protective equipment to include, but not limited to ear protection, gloves, eye protection and/or safety helmet. - When on the production floor, ability to observe, detect and respond to audible and visual machine malfunction warnings. Our Benefits and Perks Benefits eligibility is based on employment status. - Employee Rewards Package including Equity - 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan - Health Benefits Package: Choice between traditional PPO or HSA eligible medical plans; Dental insurance; and Vision insurance - Human-centered Paid Time Off including Unlimited Discretionary PTO or 10 days of accrued PTO; 10-days paid company holidays; Waiting period-free 100% paid parental leave - Torus paid Life and AD&D Insurance with option to purchase additional coverage - Voluntary Short- and Long-Term Disability Insurance - Peer Recognition Program Torus is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status.