Optum

Healthcare-data systems make technical decisions consequential: the work has to make useful analysis possible while treating data stewardship as a design constraint.

At Optum, I led technical design and implementation for healthcare-data work, including architecture, design decisions, and coordination.

I decided per report how much aggregation belonged in the analytical store and how much belonged in the API, rather than imposing one uniform rule. Pushing aggregation down reduced data movement; retaining it in the API preserved flexibility for consumer-specific needs.

I designed and implemented a governed API layer over an analytical data store. Access boundaries were part of the data and API design, and operational instrumentation made the service observable without exposing internal names or detailed architecture.

I worked with dashboard and frontend engineers to shape the API around reporting needs, and added operational instrumentation around the service so its behaviour could be examined during delivery and use.

The work delivered an API boundary supporting dashboard and reporting workflows over regulated analytical data.

Aggregation placement is workload-specific: the useful boundary depends on query shape, data movement, and the flexibility consumers need. In regulated analytical systems, governance and consumer workflows have to shape the API boundary together.