Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Optum is a global organization that delivers care aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The Associate AI/ML Engineer will assist in designing, developing, and supporting GenAI/LLM-enabled features, while building and maintaining backend services and contributing to AI-powered solutions that address complex business challenges.

Responsibilities

• Assist in designing, developing, and supporting GenAI/LLM-enabled features under guidance, from prototype through production
• Implement and iterate on prompt engineering patterns (prompting, prompt chaining, structured outputs) and contribute to basic evaluation approaches (quality, safety, hallucination risk, latency)
• Support agent-building efforts (tool use, multi-step workflows, orchestration) and help define goals, constraints, and guardrails for safe behavior
• Build and maintain backend services using Java + Spring Boot and REST APIs to expose AI capabilities to applications; integrate with Database and event streaming via Kafka where needed
• Contribute to UI/API integration work (as needed) using React to deliver end-to-end features
• Write clean, maintainable code in Java and/or Python, applying engineering best practices and participating in code reviews
• Create and maintain automated tests (e.g., JUnit) and contribute to CI quality gates (linting, unit/integration tests)
• Package and deploy services using Docker and support runtime deployments on Kubernetes; contribute to CI/CD pipelines
• Monitor and troubleshoot services using logging/observability tools (e.g., Splunk), assist with incident triage, and document fixes/runbooks
• Follow Responsible AI and secure engineering practices, including safe handling of sensitive data and adherence to internal SDLC/AIDLC standards
• Use approved productivity tools such as GitHub Copilot and Gemini to improve development speed and quality while complying with security and data-handling guidelines

Skills

• Bachelor's degree
• 1+ years of experience in software engineering or ML engineering building software components production
• 1+ years of experience in Java or Python, including ability to write readable, testable, maintainable code
• 1+ years of experience building or integrating REST APIs; familiarity with Spring Boot or similar backend framework
• 1+ years of experience using Git and collaborative development practices (branches, pull requests, code reviews)
• 1+ years of experience with Basic test automation experience (e.g., JUnit or Python testing frameworks)
• 6+ months of experience of MongoDB (or other NoSQL) and general data modeling/querying concepts
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture concepts and/or messaging systems such as Kafka (hands-on preferred)
• Foundational knowledge of AI/ML concepts, with exposure to NLP and/or LLM-based applications (e.g., summarization, extraction, Q&A)
• Exposure to GenAI patterns such as prompt engineering, RAG, and/or agent workflows; ability to evaluate outputs for correctness, safety, and consistency
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker) and basic understanding of deployment environments (cloud and/or Kubernetes), CI/CD fundamentals
• Strong communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills; comfortable working in an Agile delivery model
• All Telecommuters will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy

Benefits

• A comprehensive benefits package
• Incentive and recognition programs
• Equity stock purchase
• 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements)

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