Sr Dir Software Engineering - Remote

Optum is a global leader in health care innovation, developing cutting-edge solutions to improve health systems. The Senior Director of Software Engineering will provide enterprise engineering leadership, overseeing cross-functional teams and ensuring platform stability, modernization, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities:

• Provide enterprise engineering leadership for the OCPN platform, overseeing 10-12 cross‑functional teams across Software Engineering, QA, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering
• Own end‑to‑end accountability for delivery of client enhancements, regulatory mandates, new product capabilities, and strategic modernization initiatives
• Establish, enforce, and continuously evolve engineering standards, SDLC governance, and quality frameworks to ensure reliability, maintainability, security, and audit readiness
• Drive predictable, metrics‑based execution using delivery, quality, reliability, and cost efficiency indicators (e.g., velocity, defect trends, availability, DORA metrics)
• Partner with Product Management and Architecture to define and execute multi‑year platform roadmaps aligned to business strategy and enterprise technology direction
• Set technical direction and ensure adoption of modern engineering practices including cloud‑native architectures, CI/CD automation, API‑first design, and scalable platform patterns
• Build organizational engineering capability by continuously improving tools, practices, and technical standards across the platform
• Own production stability, availability, and operational health for the OCPN platform across all client implementations
• Lead enterprise‑grade incident management, root‑cause analysis, and continuous improvement initiatives to reduce MTTR and prevent recurrence
• Ensure platform compliance with PCI, SOC, HIPAA (as applicable), and enterprise security standards for sensitive financial and healthcare payment data
• Champion best practices in observability, monitoring, capacity planning, and operational readiness
• Drive high‑availability, resiliency, and disaster recovery strategies aligned with Optum enterprise resilience requirements
• Maintain solid operational governance and transparency around risk posture and remediation plans
• Lead transformation of legacy systems through cloud migration, architectural modernization, and platform re‑architecture initiatives
• Drive adoption of automation‑first engineering practices to improve developer productivity, operational efficiency, and delivery speed
• Sponsor and govern the use of AI/ML‑enabled engineering tools to enhance productivity, quality assurance, risk detection, and delivery forecasting
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture to ensure alignment with Optum technology standards, security frameworks, and long‑term digital strategy
• Balance modernization execution with production stability and regulatory delivery commitments
• Build, develop, and retain high‑performing engineering leaders, managers, and senior technical talent
• Foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, continuous learning, and operational ownership
• Lead workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management, and succession planning
• Drive organizational maturity across Agile execution, DevSecOps, and platform ownership models
• Establish scalable leadership structures and operating models to support platform growth and increasing complexity
• Partner with Business, Product, Operations, Security, Compliance, and Finance leaders to align engineering outcomes with enterprise objectives
• Communicate delivery health, risk posture, operational performance, and modernization progress to executive stakeholders
• Represent OCPN Engineering in strategic planning forums, governance councils, and enterprise transformation initiatives
• Ensure transparent risk management, proactive mitigation planning, and informed executive decision‑making

Requirements:

• 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience, including 5+ years in senior people leadership roles managing managers
• Demonstrated ownership of a platform modernization and transformation, large scale integration with a externally hosted SaaS platform, accountable end to end from architecture through production
• Demonstrated experience modernizing or scaling a transaction heavy platform that could not meet business growth, performance, or reliability needs
• Proven direct leadership of 15-25 engineers, including 3-4 direct manager reports within a multi-layer organization
• Proven end to end platform accountability for reliability, stability, availability, observability and operational health of mission critical systems
• Demonstrated hands on technical leadership capability-able to direct teams on architectural and technical decisions and operate credibly with senior engineers
• Experience integrating internal platforms with third party SaaS vendors, serving as the technical and execution bridge between systems
• Proven deep understanding of secure SDLC and DevSecOps practices, with experience operating in regulated environments (e.g., PCI, SOC, HIPAA)
• Experience leading cross‑functional delivery across Product, Architecture, Operations, and Security, serving as the primary engineering counterpart for senior business stakeholders on platform roadmap, delivery milestones, and operational outcomes
• Ability to represent the platform in senior leadership forums, including architecture reviews and executive updates; occasional travel for leadership meetings
• Demonstrated scaled engineering leadership capability by hiring, developing, and retaining managers and senior engineers, including ownership of succession planning, performance management, and leadership readiness
• Experience with commercial payment networks or financial transaction platforms
• Leadership of platform integration teams responsible for external data exchange, validation, and vendor testing
• Demonstrated background in SaaS to enterprise integration models, including shared responsibility vendor operating models
• Experience leading distributed or hybrid teams across multiple locations
• Accountability for platform modernization initiatives replacing or augmenting legacy systems
• Demonstrated familiarity with high availability, high correctness platforms where uptime and data integrity are critical