Principal Software Engineer

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. We are seeking a Principal Engineer for the Eligibility team who can combine hands-on engineering depth with strong architecture, design, and team leadership capabilities. This role is ideal for a lead engineer who enjoys solving complex technical problems, writing production code, mentoring engineers, and shaping the technical direction of mission-critical platform capabilities. The Principal Engineer will be part of 1-2 scrum teams and will spend approx 50% of the time coding & implementing solutions, 25% leading architecture & design, and 25% providing team leadership, mentoring, and engineering management responsibilities. The selected candidate should have deep experience with microservices, APIs, distributed systems, event-driven architecture, and data-intensive streaming applications. They should be comfortable leading design discussions, reviewing architecture, writing code, mentoring engineers, and partnering with product and business stakeholders to deliver scalable and reliable platform capabilities. This role requires someone who can operate at both strategic and execution levels. The right candidate will be able to define architecture direction, break down complex problems, implement critical components, guide scrum teams, and help improve engineering quality across the platform.

Hands-On Engineering Delivery Actively contribute code as part of scrum teams Design, develop, test, and deliver production-ready software Build and enhance microservices, APIs, streaming applications, and data processing components Own complex technical stories from design through implementation Contribute to sprint commitments and participate in backlog refinement, sprint planning, demos, and retrospectives Write clean, maintainable, secure, and scalable code Support code reviews and ensure engineering best practices are followed Troubleshoot complex application, data, integration, and production issues Help improve performance, reliability, observability, and operational readiness of CIP services Architecture, Design, and Technical Leadership Lead solution design for high-impact capabilities Define architecture patterns for microservices, streaming applications, APIs, and data-intensive workflows Guide teams on system design, event-driven architecture, scalability, resiliency, and fault tolerance Partner with architects, product owners, engineering leads, and business stakeholders to translate business needs into technical solutions Create and review design documents for complex features and platform changes Help standardize design patterns across CIP teams Drive technical decisions that reduce complexity and improve long-term maintainability Identify technical debt and recommend practical remediation plans Provide technical direction during production incidents and critical issue resolution People Leadership and Team Enablement Provide technical coaching and mentoring to engineers across one or two scrum teams Support growth of engineers by helping improve engineering discipline across design, coding, testing, deployment, and support Participate in hiring, interviewing, onboarding, and talent assessment Provide input into performance feedback and development plans where applicable Help team members understand architecture direction and engineering expectations Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, learning, and high-quality