Senior Principal Data Scientist

Senior Principal Data Scientist- Dublin or Letterkenny/ Hybrid 

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. 

About the Role:

As a Fortune 5 business, we’re one of the world’s leading healthcare companies. There are no limits here on the resources you’ll have or the challenges you’ll encounter. 
We have been supporting global healthcare systems from Ireland and the UK for more than 20 years, building a dynamic and diverse team of more than 2,100 talented individuals. With a continued record of growth and stability, we’re on the constant lookout for fresh talent to join our expanding teams. 

Blue Platform is a UHG enterprise data-centric platform that integrates and unifies proprietary and 3rd party data to provide users with easy-to-access insights to drive sustainable growth. This is a C-level priority for UHG to build out the “third leg” of the business, complementing our existing strengths in UHC and Optum. It will involve building strong cross-group, cross-functional collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders and delivering a viable growth platform for 2024 and beyond. 

The Innovation and Growth Platforms and Blue Program Leadership are seeking proactive and innovative data scientists with experience in all steps of the data science lifecycle to join our central product development team. The Blue Platform will provide enabling capabilities, and work with the lines of business to develop innovative, ambitious new product concepts, to be developed and launched on top of Blue. We are looking for data scientists to help take those new products from ideation and concept design through to POC – and potentially beyond. You will lead data exploration, develop product proof of concepts, create and recommend advanced modeling and analytics approaches to solve problems, and ensure all methods meet rigorous performance and responsible use metrics. You will be at the forefront of the data science initiatives on a strategic growth platform, driving proof of concepts, rapid prototyping and research and development activities. 

Careers with Optum offer flexible work arrangements and individuals who live and work in the Republic of Ireland will have the opportunity to split their monthly work hours between our Dublin or Letterkenny  and telecommuting from a home-based office in a hybrid work model.

Primary Responsibilities:

•    Collaborate with cross-functional teams across the enterprise to understand the business challenges we are trying to solve, the value/outcomes they will drive, and provide expertise on the data and data products that could support those ambitions
•    Lead data analysis to understand data capabilities, patterns and insights followed by recommendation of data set attributes to be used in data products and analytics
•    Describe strategies for proprietary and third-party data acquisition, cleaning, transformation (including linking) and preparation for use case and products
•    Use advanced statistical techniques, machine learning and deep learning approaches to create products and analytics that solve challenges for customers 
•    Recommend, mentor, provide guidance and support teams in use of data and data science for use cases 
•    Develop proof of concepts and prototypes to demonstrate the value of data-driven solutions and/or validate hypotheses and feasibility
•    Keep up to speed with the latest research on methodologies and modeling advances by reading research publications, blogs and attending presentations and webinars
•    Contribute to development of intellectual property and patents
•    Additional responsibilities as required

 You will be rewarded and recognised 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 providing development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

•    Master’s degree or PhD in computer science, mathematics, machine learning, statistics, or similar quantitative fields of study 
•    Proficiency in programming languages such as a Python, R or Scala
•    Expertise in machine learning frameworks and libraries (e.g. Tensorflow, PyTorch)
•    Experience with big data and cloud data technologies, and cloud platforms
•    Experience leading data science projects from conception to deployment
•    Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment
•    Ability to work collaboratively in a matrixed, multi-team environment

All telecommuters will be required to adhere to the UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

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 marginalised 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.

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, race, and membership of the Traveller community, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optum is a drug-free workplace. © 2024 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.