Value for life? - Director, Software Engineering Optum Employee Review

2.0
17 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. A lot of money to pump in 2. A mature organization with a lot of opportunities 3. Owns huge pile of data

Cons

1. Missed opportunity to create a brand - Though the number one company in a Fortune-3 Group, you will struggle to find people being aware of Optum. 2. Culture - Though they have a mature process for company culture, the company practices the exact opposite. People are expected to be a machine, not human. The company culture runs behind revenue, benefit and competition. Human life take the last on priority list. 3. Relationship - Due to the severe toxic culture, relationship is non-existent. 4. Company name - With greed, company runs on the culture of profit and revenue, creating a bad name in the market. You will never have a proud feeling of working here. You will always have to hide the fact, you are an employee here. 5. Stability - Since the human aspect is not there and greed takes precedence, firing is common. You can not guarantee, if you are going to be there next month, next hour, irrespective how good you are at your skill. 5. Leadership/Management - People get promoted for technical skills, so leadership and strategy skill take a backseat. So everyone moves in the direction of building solutions with no effective leadership. (Security breach, abuse of members money are the great examples) 6. Ethics - A Health insurance company should work for people to distribute the money collected to help the needy. Optum/UHC does the opposite to fill their treasury, in the expense of people's money and health.

Explore other reviews about Optum

5.0
25 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great Pay. Great Benefits. Great People. awesome front line management. Frequent meals and employee input.

Cons

Worked like a cog machine.

3.0
4 June 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some very talented people give so much of themselves to the company, the clients and their co-workers. I work with (and have worked with) some excellent, smart, supportive people.

Cons

Too many layoffs. Upper management is clueless about how the day to day work gets done, what it takes to make certain changes to processes, and how to treat employees. Some are great. Mostly, they just look at numbers. So many of us have been doing our jobs long enough to know what is needed for certain requests. But we don't get a voice. We just have to do it and suck it up. They are firing ('reduction in force') all of the seasoned staff and let the rest deal with the fall-out. So many teams are losing good people but those people are training their off-shore replacements before they are told about being cut. So how is that a reduction in force? It's just a reduction in payroll numbers. Everyone is on edge just waiting for the next axe to fall. And we have to try and learn or teach another role with less experienced people and more work. It's crazy. On milestone anniversaries, they send an email recognition but once the milestone gets to over 15 years, you are a target. Pay and benefits are fine by me. Raises are practically non-existent, even after layoffs and asking employees to take on more responsibility. that's messed up. They talk about work/life balance but that doesn't trickle down to the actual workers who are so stressed they fear for their jobs if they don't do the extra mile. Many of us are just hanging on instead of quitting so we can at least get some severance. Others are actively looking.

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