Principal Architect - Remote

Requisition Number: 2318903
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 inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.
This position is an experienced Bot Architect that will design, build, and scale intelligent conversational bots across voice and digital channels. This role owns the end-to-end bot architecture, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, high-performing, and aligned with business and user experience goals.
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:

• Design end-to-end architectures for voice bots, and multimodal bots
• Define conversational patterns, intent/entity strategies, dialogue flows, and state management
• Establish reusable frameworks, standards, and best practices for bot development
• Lead modernization and migration from legacy automation or IVR systems to AI-driven bots
• Build and configure bots using leading conversational AI and LLM platforms
• Design and implement backend integrations using APIs, webhooks, and microservices
• Integrate bots with enterprise systems such as contact centers and workflow applications
• Define governance for environments, access, versioning, and releases
• Ensure bots meet security, privacy, and compliance requirements
• Establish monitoring, analytics, and continuous tuning for accuracy and performance
• Drive scalability, reliability, and high availability of bot platforms
• Act as the technical authority for bot architecture and strategy
• Partner with product owners, UX, engineering, and business stakeholders
• Review designs, conduct architecture assessments, and guide production readiness

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:

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, automation, or AI solutions
• 5+ years of experience with NLU, LLMs, prompt engineering, and conversational design
• 3+ years with cloud-native architectures and API-based integrations
• 3+ years of experience with CI/CD, DevOps, and monitoring practices

Preferred Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience with multiple bot platforms and LLM frameworks
• 3+ years of contact center or digital CX domain experience
• 1+ years of experience with agent-assist or agentic AI solutions

*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 $132,200 to $226,600 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.