Software Engineer-Remote

Optum is hiring a Software Engineer-Remote to support an Identity Management rebuild initiative and the ongoing support of an existing application. This role is focused on building scalable backend services and APIs in cloud environments, with an emphasis on observability, resilient delivery, and secure engineering. If you value clear engineering practices, strong collaboration, and dependable production support, this is a strong match.

You will design, build, test, deploy, and operate Python-based backend services, including RESTful APIs and microservices. You will also work on data-intensive components using PySpark with Azure Databricks and Azure Data Factory, while improving logging, metrics, tracing, and incident readiness for operational reliability.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support backend applications, RESTful APIs, and microservices for the Identity Management rebuild and an existing application
• Build production-quality services using Python and modern API frameworks
• Develop distributed, data-intensive workflows using PySpark with Azure Databricks and Azure Data Factory
• Define API contracts, request and response models, error-handling standards, versioning strategies, and service documentation using OpenAPI or Swagger
• Implement resilient microservice patterns including retries, timeouts, idempotency, asynchronous processing, and graceful failure handling
• Create automated unit, integration, API, regression, and performance tests and integrate quality checks into CI/CD pipelines
• Implement logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, and dashboards to improve observability, incident response, and operational reliability
• Apply secure coding practices, including authentication and authorization, secrets management, encryption, and privacy-by-design principles
• Troubleshoot production issues, perform root cause analysis, improve performance, and contribute to scalability and cost optimization
• Use Git-based engineering practices including code reviews, branching strategies, automated builds, release controls, and infrastructure-aware deployment workflows
• Use enterprise-approved AI tools and custom agents to accelerate coding, testing, documentation, debugging, monitoring, and operational support
• Collaborate with product, data engineering, platform engineering, architecture, security, and application teams to communicate risks, dependencies, and delivery progress

Requirements

• 5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience building and operating enterprise applications, backend services, APIs, or microservices
• 5+ years with Python, including object-oriented programming, modular design, exception handling, packaging, automation, and maintainable coding practices
• 3+ years building RESTful APIs and working with API specifications, validation, authentication, versioning, and documentation
• 3+ years with PySpark for distributed processing, transformation, data validation, and performance tuning
• 2+ years with Azure Databricks (or similar distributed data platforms)
• 2+ years with relational and NoSQL databases, data modeling, SQL, transaction patterns, and application-level data access
• Experience designing and building microservices, including service decomposition, interface design, scalability, resilience, and operational support
• Experience with automated testing (for example, pytest) across unit, integration, API, and regression testing practices
• Git experience including pull requests, code reviews, branching strategies, CI/CD fundamentals, release management, and production support
• Experience with Docker and working understanding of Kubernetes or managed container platforms
• Experience implementing logging, monitoring, alerting, metrics, and distributed tracing for production services
• Understanding of software design principles, design patterns, clean code, code quality, and maintainable architecture
• Basic working understanding of cloud security, identity and access management, data privacy, governance, and enterprise compliance concepts
• Strong problem-solving and root cause analysis skills across application, API, data, and cloud layers
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including clearly explaining technical decisions, risks, dependencies, and delivery progress

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with event-driven architecture and messaging technologies such as Kafka, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Service Bus, or comparable platforms
• Experience supporting performance testing, capacity planning, secure software development lifecycle practices, and cloud cost optimization
• Experience building identity management and related identity resolution applications such as consumer profile, member/customer identity, or entity-resolution
• Hands-on experience with Azure Data Factory and data pipeline orchestration
• Hands-on experience building or supporting custom AI agents for coding, testing, documentation, validation, monitoring, incident triage, or workflow automation
• Healthcare, insurance, consumer profile, or enterprise identity data experience
• Knowledge of caching, API gateways, load balancing, rate limiting, asynchronous programming, and high-availability design

AI Skills and Usage Expectations

• Demonstrate baseline proficiency with enterprise-approved AI tools such as GitHub Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Databricks Genie, and other approved GenAI platforms, where applicable
• Apply AI tools responsibly to improve coding, code review, test creation, technical documentation, debugging, analysis, monitoring, and delivery quality
• Use or support custom agents for software development, automated testing, API validation, failure detection, incident triage, runbook execution, and operational reporting
• Follow enterprise guidance for responsible AI use, data protection, human review, security, and software quality

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package
• Incentive and recognition programs
• Equity stock purchase
• 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements)

Location: San Francisco, CA (remote)  |  Salary: USD 72,800 - 130,000 per year  |  Experience: 5+ years