Principal Data Scientist

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.
The Principal Data Scientist will play a pivotal role in the UnitedHealthcare Pharmacy team by applying their training and experience to some of the most pressing challenges in the U.S. healthcare system. The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and maintaining analytics, data solutions and business dashboards intended to drive excellence in financial and operational performance. They will collaborate cross-functionally with various business and data analytics teams, have proven business analysis experience, and the ability to manage multiple competing business projects at one time.
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 office and telecommuting from a home-based office in a hybrid work model.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Ideate and develop impactful reporting solutions, taking full ownership of projects from problem framing and data exploration to model development, deployment, and monitoring
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams, manage multiple priorities and deadlines, be detail-oriented and work independently as well as in groups
• Develop robust and scalable data solutions and processes to ensure timely and accurate reporting for management and staff on a wide variety of business metrics
• Responsible for detailed and continuous business analysis, identifying problems and opportunities, and recommending solutions for a business
• Transforms data into meaningful and easy to understand insights for various audiences
• Collaborate with business and product development managers on roadmap planning, prioritization, business requirements sessions and other key activities
• Participate in the development of the team's business strategy and the technical project delivery/roadmap
• Develop and manage business plans to achieve objectives
• Capture Business Requirements and translate into technical specifications
• Create specifications to bring data into a common structure, create product specifications and models, developing data solutions to support data analysis
• Partner with stakeholders to understand data requirements and business needs and develop tools and models to assist building of dashboards, data visualizations
• Define technical, data and system configuration specifications and business analysis requirements
• Translate highly complex concepts in ways that can be understood by a variety of audiences
• Develop insights and proposals for improved business processes to enable speedy deployment and testing of future projects
• Participate in multiple phases of analytics project delivery
• Analyze processes and identify issues and obstacles to make improvements
• Evaluate gaps in processes and opportunities for automation
• Influence senior leadership to adopt new ideas, products, and/or approaches

You will 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 providing development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:

• Degree Qualified (BA, BS) in relevant field (analytics, mathematics, economics, business, actuarial, statistics, engineering, or finance) or equivalent experience
• Proven proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting language such as R or Python
• Proven significant experience in data analytics, data science or actuarial science, with experience working with financial or healthcare-related data (e.g. pharmaceuticals, medical claims)
• Proven experience working within technical and business professionals in a matrix management environment
• Proven track record in driving change and influence individuals at all levels of the organization and to take appropriate risks
• Demonstrated understanding of IT systems, databases, and other technology
• Proven track record in developing solid networks and ensure collaboration and consensus building
• Demonstrated effective project ownership, management, drive & delivery
• Demonstrated excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communications skills
• Demonstrated excellent analytical reporting skills
• Proven experience with Healthcare Analytics or similar analytic knowledge

Preferred Qualifications:

• Masters and/or PhD in Finance, Analytics, Economics, Mathematics, Actuarial Science, Econometrics, or other relevant field of study
• Proven experience or knowledge of cloud-based data analytics e.g. (AWS, Azure, Snowflake)
• Proficiency in a visualisation tool like Excel, Tableau, PowerBI or QlikView/QlikSense etc.
• Proven experience in healthcare industry, either from a pharmaceutical background or consulting firm
• Proven experience in prioritizing work on multiple complex assignments with ongoing deadlines

Please note you must currently be eligible to work and remain indefinitely without any restrictions in the country to which you are making an application. Proof will be required to support your application.
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.
Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, race, and membership of the Traveller community, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optum is a drug-free workplace. © 2026 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved.