Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Optum is a global leader in health care innovation, developing solutions to improve health systems. The Senior Manager, Software Engineering will lead engineering teams to deliver AI-driven voice and conversational platform capabilities, ensuring alignment with product strategies and operational excellence.
Responsibilities
- Lead and scale multiple engineering teams, driving delivery across complex, cross-functional initiatives
- Establish engineering strategy aligned with Optum Technology and AI 10.0 objectives
- Provide organizational leadership, including hiring, talent development, performance management, and succession planning
- Set clear engineering standards, drive accountability, and foster a culture of ownership and continuous improvement
- Serve as a senior technical leader and escalation point for complex system and architectural challenges
- Influence enterprise engineering practices, platform strategy, and long-term architectural direction
- Own delivery of enterprise conversational AI platforms supporting voice, IVR, and chatbot experiences
- Drive adoption and scaling of technologies including: Amazon Connect, Amazon Lex (V2)
- Partner with AI/ML teams to operationalize: NLP pipelines, LLM integrations (Amazon Bedrock, OpenAI, or similar), Prompt engineering and evaluation strategies
- Ensure production-grade AI systems with measurable outcomes across: Accuracy, Reliability, Customer experience
- Oversee architecture and delivery of cloud-native systems leveraging: AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, Event-driven architectures
- Ensure systems are scalable, resilient, secure, and cost-efficient
- Drive platform standardization, reuse, and alignment with enterprise cloud strategy
- Partner with enterprise architecture teams to govern design decisions and technical trade-offs
- Own delivery across multiple concurrent programs and workstreams
- Drive planning and execution across: Dependencies, Risks and mitigation strategies, Milestones and roadmap alignment
- Collaborate with product, architecture, QE, and operations teams to ensure end-to-end delivery
- Establish and track success metrics tied to product adoption, performance, and business outcomes
- Ensure production readiness, operational support models, and continuous optimization
- Embed a quality-first engineering culture across all teams
- Define and enforce enterprise quality standards across: Functional performance, Reliability and scalability, AI/ML model effectiveness
- Champion advanced testing strategies for conversational AI: Intent accuracy and NLU validation, Dialog and conversation flow testing, Edge case and failure scenario handling, Regression and continuous validation pipelines
- Partner with QE to implement: Automated test frameworks, Synthetic traffic and simulation, Golden dataset and replay-based validation models
- Use telemetry and data insights to continuously enhance system performance and user experience
- Drive innovation across AI, cloud, and conversational technologies
- Evaluate and introduce new tools, frameworks, and engineering methodologies
- Promote reuse through shared services, frameworks, and automation
- Contribute to enterprise standards, best practices, and engineering governance
- Lead initiatives to improve developer productivity, system reliability, and operational efficiency
- Operate as an enterprise leader influencing strategy, execution, and outcomes
- Anticipate customer needs and proactively drive innovative solutions
- Lead through ambiguity and complexity with solid decision-making
- Build and develop high-performing, diverse engineering teams
- Drive alignment across multiple stakeholders and organizations
- Communicate effectively with senior leadership and executive stakeholders
- Deliver measurable impact across technology, product, and business dimensions
Skills
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
- 12+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in engineering management or leadership roles
- 5+ years of experience leading multiple teams delivering large-scale, distributed systems
- 5+ years of experience designing and delivering cloud-native applications (AWS preferred)
- 3+ years of experience delivering AI/ML or conversational platforms in production environments
- 2+ years of experience with AWS technologies including Amazon Connect, Lex (V2), Lambda, and API Gateway
- Experience building and scaling engineering teams and delivery organizations
- Experience with quality engineering, testing strategies, and production operations
- Reside in Chicago, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Santa Ana, Austin (role is hybrid / onsite)
- Experience in healthcare technology or regulated environments
- Deep understanding of voice platforms, IVR systems, and speech technologies
- Experience with LLMs, GenAI systems, and evaluation frameworks
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps, and observability platforms
- Experience leading enterprise-scale AI transformation initiatives (e.g., AI 10.0)
- Solid strategic thinking and organizational leadership skills
- Demonstrated ability to influence at executive levels
- Experience operating in large, matrixed enterprise environments
- Passion for innovation and continuous improvement in AI-driven systems
Benefits
- A comprehensive benefits package
- Incentive and recognition programs
- Equity stock purchase
- 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements)
Company Overview