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’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Partner Activation Engineering team. In this role, you’ll design, build, and operate systems that enable seamless onboarding, integration, and activation of strategic partners. You’ll work closely with product, partnerships, and other engineering teams to deliver reliable, scalable solutions that directly impact company growth.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll take ownership of complex features and services, contribute to architectural discussions, and help raise the technical bar through strong engineering practices and mentorship.

Salary Range: $133,784-$155,000 (Bonus and LTI Eligible)

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

While this role is remote-friendly, candidates must be located in the U.S. and some travel for interviews or meetings may be required.

How You Will Make an Impact

• Design, build, and maintain core services, APIs, and workflows
• Own features end-to-end, from technical design through production support
• Collaborate with Product, Partnerships, and Platform teams to translate business needs into well-architected technical solutions
• Contribute to system design discussions and help evolve service architecture over time
• Write high-quality, well-tested code and participate in thoughtful code reviews
• Help identify and reduce technical debt while balancing delivery and maintainability
• Mentor and support other engineers through pairing, code reviews, and knowledge sharing
• Participate in on-call rotations and contribute to operational excellence

What You Will Need to Succeed

• 4–7 years of professional software engineering experience working on production systems
• Strong experience building backend services and APIs in Ruby on Rails
• Experience working with distributed systems and cloud infrastructure
• Comfort owning features and services with minimal oversight
• Solid understanding of data modeling, performance, and system reliability
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across disciplines
• A pragmatic, product-minded approach to engineering

Nice to Have

• Experience building partner-facing platforms or external integrations
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and asynchronous processing
• Experience working in regulated or high-availability environments
• Prior experience mentoring junior engineers
• Understanding of API schemas, particularly OpenAPI/Swagger

Tech Stack

• Backend: Ruby on Rails monorepo
• APIs & Integrations: RESTful APIs, webhook-based integrations, Kafka-based event streaming
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Docker, Terraform, AWS (ECS/EKS, EC2, RDS, S3, Redshift), Buildkite
• Observability: Datadog and Sentry for logging, metrics, and alerting
• Security: OAuth2, JWT-based authentication, role-based access control

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.

Please see our Privacy Notice available HERE for more information on how we process your personal data.

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 recruiting@joinroot.com