Principal Data Scientist, Affordability Content & Ideation (ACI)

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.

As a member of the data science team, you will report to the Senior Director of Data Science and help build and scale machine learning and AI capabilities focused on discovering previously unidentified healthcare affordability opportunities.

This role sits within the Affordability, Content & Ideation organization and will be responsible for developing advanced machine learning, data science and AI-driven approaches that transform large-scale healthcare data into actionable business hypotheses. The focus is upstream opportunity discovery, anomaly detection, explainability and evidence development rather than traditional reporting or production analytics ownership.

The successful candidate will partner closely with product, affordability, analytics, engineering and payment integrity stakeholders to identify novel sources of value from complex healthcare claims, provider, reimbursement policies, contracts and clinical data.

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 office and telecommuting from a home-based office in a hybrid work model.

What you'll do:

• Design and develop advanced machine learning, statistical and AI solutions to identify emerging affordability and payment integrity opportunities
• Lead technical experimentation, research and prototyping efforts in areas where business requirements are not yet fully defined
• Develop approaches for pattern synthesis, anomaly detection, clustering, graph analytics, entity relationship modeling and explainability of analytics findings
• Design validation frameworks that improve the accuracy and business relevance of identified opportunities while minimizing false positives
• Transform technical anomalies and data patterns into explainable, evidence-backed business hypotheses suitable for downstream evaluation and concept development
• Collaborate with affordability, ideation, research and domain experts to refine models and incorporate business feedback into future model development
• Build reusable analytical assets including provider behavioural profiles, peer group frameworks, feature libraries, pattern taxonomies and methods for identifying, organizing and comparing emerging healthcare opportunities
• Partner with engineering teams to operationalize analytics within enterprise AI and analytics platforms
• Apply Generative AI and agentic AI techniques to accelerate opportunity investigation, hypothesis generation and analytical workflow automation
• Mentor and elevate other data scientists through technical leadership and best practices

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

What you will bring:

If you don't meet every single requirement, don't let that hold you back - we're just as excited about potential as we are about qualifications and experience, and you could be exactly who we're looking for.

• Master's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline
• Proven extensive experience delivering complex data science, machine learning, or artificial intelligence solutions within commercial environments
• Demonstrated experience developing and deploying machine learning solutions that deliver measurable business value
• Proven experience applying statistical modeling, machine learning, anomaly detection, clustering, graph-based analytics, and explainable AI techniques to large-scale datasets
• Demonstrated advanced proficiency in Python, SQL, feature engineering, and data modeling
• Proven experience working with modern cloud-based analytics platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake
• Proven ability to lead ambiguous analytical initiatives from problem definition through solution delivery
• Proven experience translating complex analytical findings into clear, business-relevant insights and recommendations
• Demonstrated solid collaboration and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence technical direction through expertise, credibility, and evidence-based recommendations
• Proven ability to establish analytical standards, mentor data scientists, and provide technical leadership across cross-functional teams

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD in a quantitative discipline
• Proven extensive experience working with large-scale U.S. healthcare data, including claims, prior authorization, provider contract, and related healthcare datasets
• Demonstrated solid understanding of healthcare reimbursement, Payment Integrity, provider behaviour, affordability analytics, or related healthcare domains
• Proven experience working with Generative AI, large language models (LLMs), agentic AI systems, and AI-assisted decision-support solutions
• Demonstrated record of innovation through patents, publications, conference presentations, or comparable industry contributions

Please note you must currently be eligible to work and remain indefinitely without any restrictions in the country to which you are making an application. Proof will be required to support your application.  

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.


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. © 2026 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.

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