Senior Director, Site Reliability Engineering - Remote

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.

Optum Financial is the business unit of Optum responsible for making it easy for anyone to pay for healthcare their way, anytime, and with full transparency. Optum Financial operates a set of businesses and products supporting that goal, reaching 100s of millions of members transacting $1T in money movement. Given the space, we have a high bar for operational and engineering excellence, and are adding to our Site Reliability team to reach that goal.

The Senior Director of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is a strategic leadership role responsible for driving and overseeing the reliability, scalability, and performance of mission-critical systems within a leading financial company. This position is ideal for an experienced professional with at least 15 years in software and cloud engineering, with substantial expertise in SRE practices, financial services operations, and managing large-scale, distributed cloud infrastructure. The Senior Director will lead a high-performing SRE team, collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, and influence technology strategic direction to ensure secure, resilient, and highly available payments and financial platforms.

You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely* from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Develop and execute the SRE vision and strategy to meet the reliability and performance goals of banking, healthcare payment, and payment network platforms
• Team Management: Lead, mentor, and grow a global team of SRE managers and engineers, fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement
• Reliability Engineering: Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of large-scale, distributed systems ensuring 24/7 uptime and rapid incident response
• Service Monitoring & Incident Response: Establish best-in-class monitoring, alerting, and incident management protocols to minimize downtime and service disruptions
• Risk Management & Compliance: Ensure all SRE practices and systems adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements (e.g., PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC2) relevant to financial and healthcare payment services
• Collaboration: Partner with software engineering, product, security, and operations teams to drive reliability improvements, capacity planning, and disaster recovery initiatives
• Process Optimization: Implement automation and DevOps methodologies to streamline operational processes and reduce manual intervention
• Budget & Resource Planning: Oversee resource allocation, budget planning, and vendor management for SRE initiatives
• Technology Leadership: Evaluate emerging technologies and tools to continuously enhance the reliability and scalability of financial platforms

You'll be rewarded and recognized 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 provide development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

• 15+ years of experience in technology roles
• 7+ years in site reliability engineering or large-scale infrastructure management
• 7+ years of experience in leading large, distributed SRE or DevOps teams
• 7+ years of experience in cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI), containerization (Kubernetes, Docker), and CI/CD pipelines
• 5+ years of experience in monitoring, alerting, and incident management tools (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, PagerDuty)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in the financial services sector (banking, payment networks, healthcare payments, or similar regulated environments)
• Experience with automation, scripting, and modern DevOps practices
• Knowledge of security, compliance, and risk management frameworks relevant to financial and healthcare data
• Familiarity with financial transaction processing, payment gateways, and healthcare payment systems
• Proven communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills
• Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced, highly regulated environment with a focus on reliability and customer trust
• Proven track record of successful transformation or modernization initiatives in large organizations

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $156,400 to $268,000 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

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.

UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.

UnitedHealth Group is a drug - free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.