Staff Data Engineer

Root Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 169,000 - 215,000; Full time

Job summary

Root is seeking a Staff Data Engineer to join the Data Platform team, owning financial data operations such as commissions payments and incentive programs. You will lead complex pipelines, ensure accuracy, scalability, and reliability, and partner with Finance, Product, and Engineering to shape the data roadmap.

You will act as a technical leader, contribute code, mentor engineers, and help drive faster experimentation across data sources while supporting a nationwide remote work model.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of data engineering or software engineering experience.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL.
• Experience with data platforms and cloud architectures.
• Leadership of multi-team projects across domains.

Responsibilities

• Set quarterly data strategy with cross-functional teams.
• Identify technical initiatives to improve products and systems.
• Coach engineers on experiments and projects aligned with goals.
• Contribute code each development cycle to increase impact.
• Lead incident response to improve system resiliency.
• Coordinate with Staff Engineers to evangelize standards and best practices.

Skills

Data engineering

Python

SQL

Tools

AWS

Redshift

Spark

Apache Iceberg

Terraform

Airflow

dbt

Tools: AWS

Job description

Root is on a mission to unbreak insurance by creating experiences people love at prices they can’t believe. We believe that investing in world‑class technology will facilitate a new class of insurance products, driving a massive positive impact on the hundreds of millions of drivers who carry auto insurance in the US. Root’s Engineering team is committed to building a flexible platform on which our product designers and quantitative scientists can quickly test ideas, deploy them into production, and iterate, with the ultimate objective of a delightful customer experience coupled with effective risk management.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Staff Data Engineer to join our Data Platform team to drive financial data operations at Root, including commissions payments, incentive programs, and other critical backend financial systems. In this role, you will lead complex technical initiatives across engineers within your domain, ensuring the accuracy, scalability, and reliability of data pipelines that power financial processes. You will partner closely with Finance, Product, and Engineering stakeholders to define strategy, shape the technical roadmap, and deliver systems that support high-stakes financial workflows. As a Staff Data Engineer, you will operate as a technical leader, making architectural decisions and delivering solutions with lasting impact over quarters and years.

At Root we’ve built an end-to-end financial data operations solution with multiple data collection tools, scoring pipelines, and analytics interfaces. Our analysts, data scientists and finance teams leverage this system to build payments and incentives programs. We’re looking to drastically increase our capabilities in this space. Your role is to achieve platform level tooling to allow faster onboarding of data sources, integrate data with partners, create faster experimentation cycles, and build the analytics and data science data infrastructure to enable more rapid decision loops.

Root is a technology company revolutionizing personal insurance with a pricing model based upon fairness and a modern customer experience. Using the power of telematics, Root offers customers auto insurance based on how they drive, not based solely on their demographics. With its technology-forward products, Root is working to fundamentally change an industry for the better.

Root is a “work where it works best” company. This means we will support you working in whatever Remote Location that works best for you across the US.

Salary Range : $168,600 - $215,000 (Eligible for Competitive Bonus & Equity Offering). Root is a “work where it works best” company. Meaning we will support you working in whatever location that works best for you across the US. We will continue to have our headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.

How You Will Make an Impact

• Partner with Finance, Product, Data Science, Analytics, and experts in the Insurance group to set the strategy for the quarters to come.
• Identify and socialize important technical initiatives that increase the effectiveness of our products, systems, and teams.
• Coach and guide engineers on your team in planning experiments and projects that align with our strategic objectives.
• Contribute code each development cycle to advance the impact of the team.
• Lead by example in incident response ensuring we take action to continuously improve the resiliency of our systems.
• Coordinate with Staff Engineers across the organization to establish and evangelize standards and best practices.

What You Will Need to Succeed

• 8+ years of data engineering or software engineering experience with extensive expertise in data engineering
• Proficiency in Languages: Python, SQL
• Proficiency in Data & Infrastructure: Redshift, Spark, Apache Iceberg, Terraform
• Proficiency in Orchestration & Transformation: Airflow, dbt
• Expertise in Cloud Architecture - AWS Preferred
• Proven leadership of projects involving multiple teams across functional domains
• Excellent communication skills both with engineering colleagues and senior business leaders

While not required, we’d be excited to talk to candidates who bring additional expertise in these areas:

• Expertise in building large scale finance, payments, and commissions systems

As part of Root's interview process, we kindly ask that all candidates be on camera for virtual interviews. This helps us create a more personal and engaging experience for both you and our interviewers. Being on camera is a standard requirement for our process and part of how we assess fit and communication style, so we do require it to move forward with any applicant's candidacy. If you have any concerns, feel free to let us know once you are contacted. We’re happy to talk it through.

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Consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is the policy of Root to provide reasonable accommodation when requested by a qualified applicant or candidate with a disability, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship for Root. The policy regarding requests for reasonable accommodation applies to all aspects of the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact [e-mail].