Remote Senior Data Engineer Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

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.  

Optum is seeking a hands-on Senior Data Modeler to support the Illinois Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) within the Enterprise Data Warehouse & Analytics group. The Data Modeler will work with large healthcare datasets and translate the client's business requirements into enterprise systems, applications, and process designs for large, complex health data solutions.

This role owns the design, governance, and evolution of the conceptual, logical, and physical data models that underpin the EDW platform and its modernization initiatives. It drives and supports initiatives for the IL EDW while participating in the wider EDW group's focus areas - data usage and governance, information management, privacy and security, data analytics and visualization, and information modeling - bridging the current-state Teradata EDW to the future-state cloud (Azure / Snowflake) architecture.

Working closely with data architects, ETL/data engineers, BI developers, DBAs, and business subject matter experts, the Senior Health Data Modeler ensures data structures are scalable, standards-compliant, well-documented, and aligned to enterprise and regulatory requirements across the Health and Human Services ecosystem.

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:

• Data Architecture & Strategy
  • Develop and deliver long-term strategic goals for data architecture vision and standards in conjunction with data users, clients, and other key stakeholders
  • Lead data architecture, data modeling, and data movement initiatives to enhance the data warehouse supporting analytics for Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial healthcare data - including domains such as claims, provider, TPL, and member information subject areas
  • Create an end-to-end vision for how logical design translates into one or more physical databases and how data flows through successive stages
  • Document data architecture and the enterprise environment to maintain a current, accurate view that supports a single version of the truth and scales to future analytical needs
• Data Modeling & Design
  • Analyze and translate business needs into long-term solution data models; evaluate existing data systems and work with the development team to create conceptual data models and data flows
  • Design and maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models across staging, integration, and semantic/presentation layers
  • Develop dimensional models (Kimball star/snowflake), normalized (OLTP/3NF), OLAP, and Data Vault patterns; implement Slowly Changing Dimensions, role-playing dimensions, dimensional hierarchies, surrogate keys, and data classification
  • Define primary/foreign keys, indexes, partitioning, constraints, and referential integrity rules to ensure data quality and performance
  • Produce and maintain entity-relationship diagrams (ERDs), data flow diagrams, and model documentation using Erwin or equivalent tools
• Governance, Quality & Compliance
  • Ensure data strategies and architectures are in regulatory compliance; identify where existing policies and procedures require change or where new ones are needed
  • Oversee the mapping of data sources, data movement, interfaces, and analytics with the goal of ensuring data quality
  • Create and maintain data model and metadata policies and procedures for functional design; maintain data dictionaries, business glossaries, and lineage documentation
  • Support classification and protection of sensitive data (PII, PHI) in alignment with HIPAA, PHI, and SOX requirements
• Collaboration & Delivery
  • Provide technical recommendations and engage with ETL Architects, Business SMEs, and other stakeholders throughout the Solution/Data Architecture and implementation lifecycle to develop high-performance, highly scalable data solutions (data marts/warehouse, data mining, and advanced analytics)
  • Address data-related problems regarding systems integration, compatibility, and multiple-platform integration
  • Develop and implement key components and testing criteria to guarantee the fidelity and performance of data architecture
  • Communicate with the customer and project team in a timely manner and escalate issues and risks appropriately
• Modernization & Migration Support
  • Contribute to migration of legacy Teradata models to modern cloud platforms (Azure Synapse / Databricks Lakehouse, Snowflake)
  • Design target-state models leveraging medallion (Bronze/Silver/Gold) architecture, Delta Lake, and Parquet patterns
  • Assess existing models for modernization opportunities, redundancy, and optimization; recommend improvements to architects
• Qualified candidates will be expected to effectively demonstrate:
  • Proven problem-solving, influencing, communication, and presentation skills; self-starter
  • Ability to work in a fast-paced, changing environment with short deadlines, interruptions, and multiple concurrent tasks/projects
  • Ability to work independently with strong planning, strategy, estimation, and scheduling skills

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 IT experience
• 7 years of experience in data modeling, data strategy, and roadmap for large and complex health entities and systems; implemented large-scale, end-to-end Data Management & Analytics solutions for more than one large client
• 5 years of demonstrated knowledge of regulatory security requirements regarding HIPAA, PHI, PII, and other healthcare data security standards
• 5 years of Experience with Erwin Data Model (or comparable tools such as ER/Studio, SQL Developer Data Modeler)
• 5 years of strong healthcare domain knowledge of Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial healthcare data sets
• 5 years of Expert-level SQL skills with direct experience writing complex analytic queries, stored procedures, DDL, DML, and DCL; thorough knowledge of query optimization and the ability to write to ANSI standards and review others' code
• 5 years of experience in Data Quality, Data Profiling, Data Governance, Data Security, Metadata Management, MDM, Data Archival, and Data Migration strategies using appropriate tools
• Expertise with normalized OLTP, OLAP, MDM, and dimensional modeling techniques - star schemas, slowly changing dimensions, role-playing dimensions, dimensional hierarchies, and data classification

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure and services (Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, Purview, Azure Maps, etc.)
• Experience with Snowflake DBMS, including object design and performance tuning.
  Experience with Power BI or Tableau
• Experience supporting State Medicaid EDW, MMIS, or federal reporting programs (T-MSIS, PERM, MARS, Quality of Care)
• Hands-on experience with ETL tools (e.g., Informatica, Azure Data Factory)
• Hands-on experience with BI tools and reporting software
• Experience with a scripting language used for analytics such as Python or R
• Familiarity with Delta Lake / Lakehouse architecture and Microsoft Fabric
• Proven exposure to Teradata Vantage 20 and modernization of Teradata workloads onto cloud platforms
• Proven exposure to AI/ML and GenAI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Snowflake Cortex) for accelerating modeling, documentation, and metadata enrichment

*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 $91,700 - $163,700 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.