Solutions Architect: Golden Valley MN

UnitedHealth Group is a company that's on the rise. We're expanding in multiple directions, across borders and, most of all, in the way we think. Here, innovation isn't about another gadget, it's about transforming the health care industry. Ready to make a difference? Make yourself at home with us and start doing your life's best work. (sm)

At UnitedHealth Group, we are a healthy business in more ways than one. We are a Fortune 50 company identified as the first or second most admired company in the health care industry by rankings published in Fortune magazine since 1995. We also have the privilege each day directly or indirectly to make a significant difference in someone's life.  Sound like a rare combination? It is. Join us and you'll be inspired to discover your own mix of professional advantages and personal rewards. UnitedHealth Group's Optum IT provides a full range of IT services to UnitedHealth Group (UHG) global business segments. We have unique opportunities for IT Architects to provide a proactive approach for anticipating and solving business problems and enable the enterprise to effectively, efficiently adapt and transform.

The Solutions Architecture role offers the opportunity to work on the most challenging and complex programs at UnitedHealth Group (Optum). We facilitate the definition of solution alternatives for program sponsors. The role requires daily coordination with business teams, program management, application teams and a variety of other architectural roles. You are responsible for driving the conversations that articulate a solution for these very complex programs. You will be delivering documents, diagrams and models, not code, but the quality of these products will heavily influence the quality of the technology we build.

Join us and you'll be inspired to discover your own mix of professional advantages and personal rewards. UnitedHealth Group's Optum IT provides a full range of IT services to UnitedHealth Group (UHG) global business segments.

As a Solutions Architect, you will ensure that we are building enterprise information systems that are truly aligned with the business by engaging in the following activities:

For any given project, quickly absorb the business drivers, and assess the IT assets needed to create the capabilities required to fulfill the business vision and requirements.

Understand the Enterprise Architecture roadmap, and constantly balance short-term project pressures against long-term architectural goals.

Research, identify, and recommend industry best practices for solving business problems.

Rapidly navigate between high-level business vision, through mid-level systems requirements, all the way down to low-level implementation considerations, and back up, sometimes all within a 2-minute conversation.  Identify candidate solution approaches, and model cost-benefit tradeoffs of each.
- Provide current best practices and 3rd Party solution alternatives.
- Support or drive buy-vs-build decisions and vendor analyses.

Ability to articulate and present different points of view

Create a shared sense of direction and community amount the teams

Proven ability to transfer knowledge and stay aware of current trends and technical advancements

Develop a mental model of the chosen solution, and document using a combination of text, diagrams and human interactions.

Help all other players on the team - business, development, operations - develop a mental model of the solution, as it affects their domain.

Create clear and traceable solution documentation (Solution Summary Document and supporting diagrams) that will provide both a basis for project sign-off by all stakeholders, and the foundation for Systems Analysts and Developers to create High-Level Design.

Ability to review high level design documents and provide feedback to comply with the Solution Summary document.

Cultivate role as trusted advisor of all parties (business, EPMO, development team, QA, etc)

Architecture and delivery of applications

Gracefully transition solution leadership to the development team, once the solution is clearly understood, documented and under development.

Leverage your experience, versatility and quick-learning to jump in when and where needed to help the project through sticking points.

Over time, develop a comprehensive understanding of the various business domains, their systems landscape, their processes and their strategic roadmap.

Support decommissioning of redundant legacy systems, by developing transitional architectures to support migration plans.

Seek opportunities to create efficiencies or advance architectural agenda, by identifying commonalities between projects.

Assist PM and business leadership in defining technical staffing strategy for assigned projects.

Take leadership role in developing project structure and delivery strategy.

Superior facilitation skills - be comfortable speaking up in an information vacuum, conversely be willing to be a good listener when other stakeholders are on a roll.

Ability to support interactions with CxO level Need very reliable informal note-taking skills - often the ESA is the default documenter of the results of cross-functional meetings. Often the ESA may need to consult their own notes, months after the fact, to confirm the reasoning behind a decision.

Strong presentation skills with ability to create both high level diagrams for executives, as well as detailed solution documentation for analysts, QA, developers.

Organizational and time management skills, focused and strong attention to detail.

Excellent interpersonal skills, team player, proactive, self-starter and motivated.

Develop understanding of the healthcare industry, Optum's business units and strategy.

8 or more years experience in a variety of IT positions and

Either:

3+ years' experience as a lead Systems Analyst, responsible for producing systems requirements used by developers to create a detailed design.

                Or

3+ years of IT Systems Architecture experience

4+ years' of writing functional technical specification, used by development team to create working software. E.g., System Requirements Spec, Use-Case Realizations, Functional Specifications, Tech Spec.

Experience in an analyst or architect role working the full SDLC including Waterfall, Iterative/Incremental, and Agile.

Demonstrated data-modeling experience: ability to develop rough-draft logical data model on paper, ability to understand and critique detailed data models created by the Data Architect.

Experience designing and troubleshooting interfaces. Knowledge of interface styles and design considerations: batch, near-real-time, message-based, asynchronous, service calls.

Strong oral communication skills. We accomplish most of our interactive solutions through teleconferences. You have to be comfortable speaking up and speaking at length in ambiguous situations with little or no real-time feedback. Must be comfortable working with both IT and business audiences.

Solid writing and documentation skills. Although much of our elicitation and problem-solving occurs via oral interaction, at the end of the day, the architect is expected to produce a comprehensive written specification, consisting of a combination of text and diagrams.

Intellectual curiosity - a desire to always learn more than seems absolutely necessary to accomplish the task at hand.

Demonstrated experience Designing loosely-couple architectures

Experience Creating Service-Oriented Architectures

Experience Leading development or QA teams

Experience Creating UML models

Experience Working on platform de-commissioning projects (aka, retirement, sunset of legacy apps)

Experience applying design patterns