Senior Staff Engineer

GEICO; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 130,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

GEICO is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for critical software systems and to establish a strong culture of ownership. You will guide the technical direction of multiple products, shape how GEICO Tech develops software, and deliver high-impact outcomes for the organization.

The role emphasizes architecture, strategy, and innovation across teams. Responsibilities include setting a durable technical direction, evolving architecture, ensuring reliability and

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience with fault tolerance, resilience, and recovery design.
• Strong ability to lead beyond a single team and shape shared platforms.

Responsibilities

• Own the long-term technical direction for GEICO tools and the management plane.
• Define and evolve system orchestration patterns for diverse architectures.
• Balance reliability, operability and development speed in architectural decisions.
• Integrate across vendor and bespoke platforms to unify developer experiences.
• Develop and mature software ownership standards and practice as the team grows.

Skills

Golang

Microservices

Kubernetes

Frontend experience

Developer tooling

Job description

Why Join GEICO?

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities. Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide. Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.

The Role:

We are seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for critical software development systems while establishing a strong culture of ownership. This role operates at the intersection of architecture, strategic influence, and innovation. You will be responsible for the technical direction of multiple products and systems, and shaping how GEICO Tech develops software and delivers the impact of their work. This is a role for engineers who: Craft thoughtfully designed, scalable systems Define culture from team to company Mentor and grow engineers within and across teams Leverage technology to tackle any challenge

Scope & Impact

At the Senior Staff level, success is measured by durable impact across and beyond the Developer Engineer org, while leading and developing software. You will build systems while accelerating the growth and transformation of GEICO Tech.

What You’ll Do

• Enterprise Technical Leadership Own the long-term technical direction for our tools as GEICO’s management plane for team structure and roadmap delivery.
• Define and evolve system orchestration patterns that scale across diverse application architectures and maturity levels.
• Make architectural tradeoffs balancing reliability, operability, and development speed.
• Integrate across vendor and bespoke platforms to unify developer experiences.
• Culture of Ownership – Software Development Develop and mature software development and system ownership across Tech Codify team standards and practices into source of truth for team organization Connect team-based access across agentic development to permissions, to provide seamless, high velocity development experiences.
• Culture of Ownership – Outcomes & Impact Lead how organizations across Tech, from pricing to Platform as a Service, plan and execute on work in an AI-first era Connect unstructured and unstructured data to quantify impact of technology & AI against business goals and KPIs.
• Cultivate engineering culture that recognizes engineers for the success and reliability of their products.

What We’re Looking For

Required 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems. Deep expertise in fault tolerance, resilience, and recovery design. Proven track record of org-level technical leadership beyond a single team. Strong ability to reason about and design for partial failure. Experience shaping shared platforms or frameworks used by many teams.

Strongly Preferred Experience with durable execution, or workflow orchestration Experience with Golang, microservices, Kubernetes; front end experience nice to have Hands‑on experience building and improving developer tooling. Data-driven decision making, from observability to success metrics. Ability to translate low-level technical risks into clear business and reliability outcomes.

Annual Salary $130,000.00 - $260,000.00 The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate’s work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations. At this time, GEICO will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The GEICO Pledge:

• Great Company: Protecting customers through life’s twists and turns with innovation and integrity.
• Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.
• Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.
• Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well‑being and future.

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law.

GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.

GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates.

GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability.

We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.

At GEICO,we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities. Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide. Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States.

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