Principal Engineer - Platform Engineering

Principal Engineer

As a Principal Engineer in the Enterprise Security & Resiliency Office (ESRO), you’ll lead a core platform engineering team focused on building secure, scalable, and developer-centric solutions for UnitedHealth Group. You will architect and deliver high-impact tooling such as AI-powered assistants, enterprise search, infrastructure automation, and developer utilities that accelerate cloud adoption and secure-by-default engineering across the enterprise.

This role is both strategic and hands-on, combining deep technical leadership with mentoring responsibilities. You’ll guide a team of 10+ engineers across various levels, shape engineering culture, and drive alignment across product, UX, infrastructure, and security. In parallel, you’ll help grow our security engineering influence by supporting developer outreach, internal adoption, and brand presence within the engineering community.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership:
• Architect scalable, secure services and frameworks supporting AI assistants, search infrastructure, asset tracking, developer tooling, and platform APIs
• Lead end-to-end solution design and implementation using React, Node.js, GraphQL, and DevOps best practices
• Contribute to long-term platform strategy and architectural direction, balancing innovation with operational excellence
• Team Development & Mentorship:
• Mentor and grow a high-performing team of engineers across multiple levels (Lead, Senior, Mid, Associate)
• Drive engineering best practices including testing, observability, CI/CD, documentation, and platform standardization
• Cultivate a solid engineering culture of ownership, collaboration, and quality
• Execution & Delivery:
• Lead the delivery of cross-cutting features across AI, developer utilities, search, cloud infrastructure, and security tooling
• Remove roadblocks, clarify scope, and ensure solutions are aligned with platform standards and business goals
• Partner with product managers, UX designers, and stakeholders across multiple domains to deliver impactful outcomes
• Innovation & Strategy:
• Drive the adoption of generative AI and cloud-native development through responsible, secure platform enhancements
• Identify opportunities for intelligent automation, developer enablement, and data-driven insights
• Stay current with emerging technologies and champion their practical application within the engineering organization

Required Qualifications:

• Masters degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• 10+ years of experience delivering scalable software systems, with deep experience in full-stack development
• 2+ years of experience in a technical leadership or people mentorship role
• Hands-on experience integrating LLMs or generative AI into enterprise applications or developer workflows
• Experience deploying and operating applications in Kubernetes environments (EKS, AKS)
• Experience working on internal developer portals, scaffolding tools, or CI/CD frameworks
• Familiarity with enterprise search technologies (Meilisearch, Elasticsearch)
• Familiarity with CI/CD automation, GitHub Actions, and DevOps pipelines
• Expertise in JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Node.js, and API development using REST and GraphQL
• Background in platform engineering or developer experience teams
• Solid architectural background in designing high-availability systems, frameworks, and distributed platforms
• Exposure to observability tooling, error monitoring systems, and developer productivity metrics
• Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform and cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure
• Track record of driving inner-source initiatives or internal engineering community engagement
• Proven solid grasp of secure coding practices and cloud security principles
• Proven excellent communication skills and ability to lead across global, cross-functional teams
• Proven to be comfortable navigating ambiguity and driving clarity in fast-paced environments
• Proven ability to simplify complex systems and reduce engineering inefficiencies at scale

What Sets This Role Apart:

• Strategic Ownership: You’ll lead platform initiatives that directly impact how engineers across UHG build, secure, and ship software
• Engineering Culture: Mentor future leaders, uphold technical excellence, and foster a culture of innovation and collaboration
• Visibility & Impact: Work closely with senior engineering leaders to influence the vision, architecture, and execution of platform strategy
• Innovation Focus: Champion adoption of modern cloud patterns, generative AI, and developer-first tooling that reduces friction and boosts productivity

What You’ll Gain:

• The opportunity to shape platform engineering best practices at scale across a Fortune 5 enterprise
• The opportunity to lead high-impact initiatives in AI, developer enablement, and platform extensibility
• A collaborative, engineering-led environment that values autonomy, innovation, and continuous growth
• High visibility with platform leadership and the ability to influence how engineering teams build software across UHG

Working Model & Team Culture:

• Hybrid collaboration model with flexible overlap hours (7 AM - 11 AM Central Time) to engage with U.S.-based teams
• Agile, full-stack team focused on building reusable, scalable systems that serve thousands of engineers
• Culture of mentorship, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement
• Emphasis on clean architecture, pragmatic solutions, and shared responsibility for platform success

Join Us. Build the Platform that Builds Everything Else.

If you're passionate about developer experience, platform architecture, and leading teams that empower engineers at scale, we want to hear from you.

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.