Principal Data Scientist - 2314642

Principal Data Scientist- Dublin & Letterkenny, Ireland

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.

In healthcare, evolution doesn't just happen. It takes innovation, imagination, and a passion for solving problems in new and better ways. And innovation is taking place at a lightning-fast pace every day at Optum.

As the fastest growing part of the UnitedHealth Group family of businesses, we're expanding our team in Ireland and creating excellent opportunities for those who want greater purpose and more impact in their work. We'll provide investment, support, and resources to advance your career. You'll provide the talent, ambition, and drive.

Are you ready to take the next step in your data science and engineering career? We're seeking a highly motivated Principal Data Scientist to join our dynamic Data Analytics team. In this senior role, you'll architect and implement scalable analytics and AI solutions that drive business strategy, deliver actionable insights, and enable data-driven decision-making across the organization. As part of this role, you will also have opportunities to work on the deployment and operationalization of advanced analytics solutions including AI and large language models (LLMs) to accelerate innovation and advance key organizational strategies.

You'll thrive in a start-up-like environment that values agility, experimentation, and rapid iteration. We operate with a strong sense of ownership and urgency—delivering quick, high-quality results while continuously improving our solutions based on feedback. The ideal candidate is comfortable balancing speed with accuracy and enjoys working in an atmosphere where priorities can shift rapidly to address new opportunities.

We value curiosity, initiative, and passion for problem-solving. The ideal candidate brings deep experience in designing, building, and optimizing data pipelines and analytical data models that empower business insights and drive strategic decision-making. They excel at transforming complex, raw data into well-structured, reliable datasets that serve as the foundation for impactful analytics initiatives. This candidate thrives in environments that require both independent work and close cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders such as data scientists, analysts, engineers, and business leaders to align technical solutions with organizational strategy.

If you enjoy engaging with stakeholders to understand their needs, communicating insights clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, and using advanced analytics to solve pressing business problems—this could be the perfect next step for you.

Schedule : This is a full-time position with standard working hours of Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm.

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

Primary Responsibilities of the Principal Data Scientist :

• Lead the end-to-end development of scalable data and ML pipelines, ensuring data and model infrastructure directly supports organizational strategy, analytical models, and critical business decisions.
• Architect high-performance data models and integrate them seamlessly with ML model development, optimizing for analytics platforms such as cloud-based data warehouses (Snowflake / Redshift / BigQuery).
• Translate complex business requirements into robust engineered datasets that drive decision-making at all levels of the organization.
• Rapidly iterate on analytics solutions based on stakeholder feedback; deliver quick turnaround without sacrificing accuracy or quality.
• Partner with stakeholders across teams (including IT, product owners, operations) to identify opportunities where analytics and ML models can add strategic value.
• Ensure best practices in code quality, documentation standards, testing procedures (unit / integration), and data quality checks.
• Drive stakeholder engagement : facilitate discussions and communicate impact of project goals / results; manage expectations throughout project lifecycle.
• Develop tools or reusable components that empower other analysts to perform self-service analytics efficiently.
• Mentor team members on engineering best practices within analytics contexts.
• You will be rewarded and recognised 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.

Required Qualifications :

Preferred Qualifications :

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