Pros
Base salary is competitive, my team uses a modern tech stack. May not be true for a lot of other teams within UHG/Optum. Lots of flexibility to work remote as long as you are a productive team member. I do get a decent spec computer for programming. If you are a good programmer you will get plenty of opportunity at Optum, but the work may not always be impactful. Very stable employment. 23 days of PTO and I don't feel pressure to work extra hours.
Cons
Lots of middle management to deal with. Can be hard to accomplish things at times. Your computer is extremely locked down even if you don't deal with sensitive data. I don't feel a personal connection to my product. I don't feel that my product helps many people. Benefits are bad. Healthcare is horrible, I think my max out of pocket for out of network providers is $13,000 on the High Deductible plan and the deductible itself is $6000. I am beginning to view this as taking money out of my salary due to how high the deductible is. They do offer other plans, but the premiums are much higher. I have to do a blood test to get the additional money in my HSA while other companies will just contribute on an annual basis. They just cut the terms of the ESPP benefit, it no longer has a look back and the discount is 10% on close. 401(k) is average. Employee reviews are done by stack ranking your team. Stack ranking can be demoralizing. Your bonus is probably determined by a bonus pool. Some politics higher up, but at my level there is almost none. It can be a bit annoying to hear Town Halls preaching change, but many innovative projects will get canned by execs because they don't have short term ROI.