Anyone willing to share how it is like to work in Optum which is under United Health Group? Future prospect, stability, culture, benefits? Pros/Cons. Offer at hand for Analytics position. Thank you!
Managers have opportunity for growth, individual contributors not so much. Pay rises and bonuses are low for individual contributors 1-2% and if you get a 5% bonus that would be outstanding Lots of politics. Work from home and Work life balance are great for most
Getting a good raise? go for it.
Hi @Optum, can you refer me for new grad SDE roles? (will be graduating in summer 2022)
@Facebook”) dm me I can refer you
Do you have other offers? Avoid it if you can. There is no career growth, raise, bonus never go beyond 5% and lots of politics with Peter principle.
No career growth, 1.5% yearly raise, outdated tech. Excellent WLB, 100% WFH, minimal work.
Worked there for 1.5 years. Tons of politics, if you put your head down and perform you can avoid this. Also lot's of hours, most places in Optum are not 40 hour jobs. Also reorgs are very common. Expect layoffs 1 to 2 times per year.
I agree with a lot of the comments above. I've had a lot of luck jumping around the organization from Optum to UHC. I've held 3 different roles in 5 years so growth is possible. The unfortunate part is the raises and bonuses. Pretty mediocre but WLB is excellent
Do you get decent raises when you switch roles? I had applied for a position one level higher, and the HR guy told me it was capped at 110K for a level 29. I decided I'd focus my effort on applying elsewhere..
It was okay. 6-8% raises. I didn't complain because I was inexperienced in all those roles as I was trying to figure out where to take my career. I looked at the salary grades on the hub and 110k doesnt appear to be the cap...
Is it easy to switch to other roles internally?
I’m actually leaving optum in a couple weeks solely for the lack of career growth and limited raises/bonuses. I’m a 27 with direct reports making crap pay but doing triple the work I was doing a few months ago. Leaving for a company that has more room for career growth and rewards bonuses/promotions more regular and on a less random standard
+1 I’m leaving for the same above reasons except I don’t have direct reports.
I had several friends at Optum and UHG in Minneapolis. My brother is a VP at UHG, but was an Optum VP previously. You’ll get a similar feel as Amazon’s cut throat culture, if you can navigate the political landscape and follow hierarchy / chain of command you’ll be fine. However, in general if you’re typically a high performer , you should make friends and build your brand internally with leadership. They have regular opportunities for you to be successful and get promoted but the internal leadership culture is competitive enough that you will have to leverage key relationships for support.
Thank you @junoonx . From a Software/data Science side, how strong is their SWE practices?
They have pockets of excellence. It’s healthcare, so slower pace to rollout new tech; however I have friends in architecture and product development who are doing amazing things with cloud native, AI/ML and blockchain, while several others are frustrated at the pace things move. That said, they’re not FAANG but given how early in the cycle they are with building a Data practice, you could make a massive difference.