Staff Software Engineer, Estimates

Hover; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 237,000 - 295,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Meaningful equity

Healthcare coverage

Unlimited PTO

Paid family leave

Self‑care days

Wellbeing resources

Learning & training

Job summary

Hover seeks a Staff Software Engineer to lead backend architecture for the Property Scope stack, directing design of 3D scope, estimates, and catalog integration. You’ll work closely with adjusters and contractors, review code, and help hire engineers to build this critical capability.

You’ll mentor teams, partner with product and design, and shape the direction of our enterprise features while delivering scalable solutions in a hybrid US office model.

Qualifications

• Experience operating as a Staff Software Engineer or equivalent, setting technical direction for a product area across multiple engineers.
• Deep backend and systems design skills, and a track record of owning a complex domain end to end rather than a single service within it.
• Experience building customer-facing products, and comfort working directly with customers to understand their workflow.
• Clear, direct communication: you give specific feedback, say where things stand, and contribute to product and business decisions, not only technical ones.
• Comfort making progress while direction is still being set.
• Experience with Ruby on Rails, React, TypeScript, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL, or a similar stack you can ramp on quickly.

Responsibilities

• Design data flows for the estimates engine and how inspection data feeds into it.
• Enable exports to estimatics platforms like Xactimate and Cotality.
• Set a visible bar on code quality and engineering throughput across levels.
• Partner with product, design, insurance integrations, and materials platform teams on shared surfaces.
• Turn Hover’s property data into scope, cost, and design recommendations for homeowners.

Skills

Technical leadership

Backend systems design

Customer-facing product

Tools

Ruby on Rails

React

TypeScript

GraphQL

PostgreSQL

Job description

Hover helps people design, improve, and protect the properties they love. With proprietary AI built on over a decade of real property data, Hover answers age-old questions like “What will it look like?” and “What will it cost?” Homeowners, contractors, and insurance professionals rely on Hover to get fully measured, accurate, and interactive 3D models of any property — all from a smartphone scan in minutes.

At Hover, we’re driven by curiosity, purpose, and a shared commitment to serving our customers, communities, and each other. We believe the best ideas come from diverse perspectives and are proud to cultivate an inclusive, high-performance culture that inspires growth, accountability, and excellence. Backed by leading investors like Google Ventures and Menlo Ventures, and trusted by industry leaders including Travelers, State Farm, and Nationwide — we’re redefining how people understand and interact with their spaces.

Why Hover wants you

Every property decision comes down to the same questions: what work needs to be done, what will it cost, and what will it look like. The answers live in separate places: the inspection, carrier guidelines, the materials catalog, pricing, and what the homeowner wants. Today someone pieces them together by hand, whether that’s an adjuster scoping storm damage or a contractor quoting a homeowner’s remodel. Hover already holds the property data that connects them. We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to turn that data into recommendations on scope, cost, and design, so people take fewer steps to reach a decision they trust. You’ll shape the strategy as an equal partner to our Principal Product Manager, on work that supports some of our largest enterprise insurance initiatives.

You will contribute by

As a technical owner inside Property Scope, you’ll set direction for 3D scoping, estimates, and scope-to-order, including our material catalog, pricing, and ordering, across insurance claims and homeowner projects. You’ll spend about two days a week hands‑on in design and code, and you’ll sit with adjusters and contractors to learn the workflow from the people doing it. You’ll review code to unblock the team, give engineering managers a clear technical read on the engineers you work with, and help hire the people who build this with you. As our restoration and retail workflows converge, you’ll help define the shared surfaces that serve both, so we build them once instead of twice. We’re rebuilding this team around this role, so the architecture, the engineering bar, and the shape of the team are yours to influence.

• Designing how inspection data flows into the estimates engine, so users stop re‑entering what Hover already knows
• Making Hover estimates hold up for enterprise carriers and export cleanly to estimatics platforms like Xactimate and Cotality
• Setting a visible bar on code quality and throughput for engineers across levels
• Partnering with product, design, insurance integrations, and our materials platform team on shared surfaces
• Turning Hover’s property data into scope, cost, and design recommendations for homeowners planning changes to their property

Your background includes

• Experience operating as a Staff Software Engineer or equivalent, setting technical direction for a product area across multiple engineers
• Deep backend and systems design skills, and a track record of owning a complex domain end to end rather than a single service within it
• Experience building customer-facing products, and comfort working directly with customers to understand their workflow
• Clear, direct communication: you give specific feedback, say where things stand, and contribute to product and business decisions, not only technical ones
• Comfort making progress while direction is still being set
• Experience with Ruby on Rails, React, TypeScript, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL, or a similar stack you can ramp on quickly

Nice‑to‑haves

• You’ve shipped LLM or agent‑based features to customers, and you use AI tools in your own engineering work
• Experience with catalog, pricing, quoting, or CPQ systems
• Experience in construction, restoration, insurance claims, field service, or vertical software that replaced a paper or spreadsheet workflow
• Experience with estimatics platforms such as Xactimate or Cotality
• Time in a strong engineering organization and at a startup (as an engineer or a founder), including helping a team or product scale

Benefits

• Compensation - Competitive salary and meaningful equity in a fast-growing company
• Healthcare - Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and dependents
• Paid Time Off - Unlimited and flexible vacation policy
• Paid Family Leave - We support work/life balance and offer generous paid parental and new child bonding leave
• Mandatory Self‑Care Days - A day set aside each month to allow employees to recharge
• Remote Wellbeing Resources - We provide recurring fitness classes, meditation/ mindfulness tools, virtual therapy, and family planning assistance
• Learning - We encourage continued education and will help cover the cost of management training, conferences, workshops, or certifications

Hybrid roles at Hover

Hover has Hubs in San Francisco and New York City, where we expect that all employees living within a 50-mile radius of our offices will come into their local Hover office at least three times a week to build rapport and foster organic connection. At this time, Hover is not considering fully remote roles.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $237,000 to $295,000 annually. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all applicable US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.