Junior Architect / Senior Data Engineer - Remote

UnitedHealth Group is focused on improving health data flow and creating a connected system. They are seeking a Senior Azure Data Engineer to design, build, and operate their enterprise data platform on Microsoft Azure, delivering data pipelines and products that support analytics and reporting.

Responsibilities:

• Design and build robust, reusable, parameter-driven ingestion and transformation pipelines using Azure Data Factory, Synapse Pipelines, Data Bricks and/or Microsoft Fabric Data Factory
• Implement medallion architecture (Bronze / Silver / Gold) on Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 using Delta Lake, Parquet, and structured streaming patterns
• Build performant ELT workflows that leverage pushdown to source systems (Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool, Azure SQL, Teradata) where appropriate
• Develop and optimize PySpark notebooks and jobs on Azure Databricks or Synapse Spark
• Design dimensional models (Kimball star/snowflake) and data vault patterns for analytics consumption
• Implement Slowly Changing Dimensions (Type 1/2/3), Change Data Capture, and late-arriving data patterns
• Tune distributed SQL workloads in Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool / Fabric Warehouse, including distribution keys, partitioning, and clustered column store indexes
• Implement CI/CD for data pipelines using Azure DevOps (YAML pipelines, ARM/Bicep/Terraform) across Dev / SIT / UAT / Prod environments
• Instrument pipelines with robust logging, auditing, and monitoring using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and KQL
• Define and enforce coding standards, code review practices, branching strategies, and release management
• Lead or contribute to legacy-to-cloud migrations - e.g., Informatica PowerCenter to Azure Data Factory, on-premises Teradata / Oracle / SQL Server to Synapse or Fabric
• Perform workload assessment, capacity planning, and cost modeling for target-state architectures
• Production incident response for critical pipelines

Requirements:

• Demonstrated experience in Data Bricks and PySpark
• Production experience with one or more of: Azure Synapse Analytics (Dedicated and Serverless SQL Pools, Spark Pools) OR Azure Databricks (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog) OR Microsoft Fabric (Warehouse, Lakehouse, OneLake)
• Experience with Azure Key Vault, Azure AD / Entra ID (including managed identities and service principals), and private networking (VNet integration, private endpoints)
• Experience with monitoring and troubleshooting with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and KQL
• Deep hands-on expertise with Azure Data Factory: pipelines, datasets, linked services, triggers, parameterization, mapping data flows, and all three Integration Runtime types (Azure, Self-hosted, SSIS)
• Demonstrated working knowledge of Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (hierarchical namespace, RBAC + ACLs, lifecycle management, security)
• Proficient in T-SQL; familiarity with Spark SQL, KQL, PowerShell, and Bash shell scripting
• Advanced SQL - window functions, CTEs, query optimization, execution plan analysis, performance tuning
• Demonstrated Python for data engineering - pandas, PySpark, REST API integration, unit testing (pytest)
• Willing/able to travel approximately 10% of the time as business needs dictate (occasional travel to Springfield, IL two to three times per year)
• 5+ years of data warehouse development experience
• 5+ years of data modeling experience using ERWIN or similar tools
• 2+ years of experience with Azure Data Factory and Snowflake
• Medicaid Domain Knowledge