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Senior Data Scientist, Growth

Root Insurance

Root Insurance

Sales & Business Development, Data Science
United States · Remote
Posted on Aug 13, 2024

CURRENT ROOT EMPLOYEES - Please apply using the career page in Workday. This career site is for external applicants only.


The Opportunity

We believe that a disruptive insurance company must have a principled quantitative framework at its foundation. At Root, we are committed to the rigorous development and effective deployment of modern statistical machine learning methods to problems in the insurance industry.

At Root, the Quantitative Science team is responsible for the majority of all marketing capital allocation, using quantitative methods to test, maintain, and enhance our marketing strategies across numerous distribution channels. As a Senior Data Scientist on the Growth Data Science team, you will play a key role in expanding and diversifying Root’s direct marketing portfolio through increasing our footprint in the mid and upper funnel.

You will help Root test and learn in new channels, shepherding them from R&D to production. Your success will be measured by R&D throughput—specifically, the number of new channels and marketing strategies you can test, evaluate, and provide data-driven recommendations for. Thoughtful design and execution of targeting models and A/B tests, along with effective communication with stakeholders, will be key to your success.

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 to give more flexibility and more choice about how we live and work.

Salary Range: $113,000 - $144,000 (Bonus Eligible)

How You Will Make an Impact

  • Expand and diversify Root’s direct marketing portfolio by shepherding new mid-upper funnel channels from R&D to production

  • Rapidly prototype, test, and iterate on novel marketing strategies in the mid and upper funnel

  • Design time- and cost-efficient A/B tests that enable rigorous measurement of the incremental profit impact of marketing campaigns

  • Deliver clear and prompt communication of research results that drive action to leaders and stakeholders

  • Build data science pipelines to quickly iterate on research ideas and put them into production

  • Take end-to-end ownership of new channels and marketing approaches, continuously improving upon quantitative solutions

What You Will Need to Succeed

  • Advanced degree in a quantitative discipline (PhD preferred) and 3+ years of applying advanced quantitative techniques to problems in industry

  • Mid-upper funnel marketing experience:

    • Developing targeted, data-driven marketing strategies and deploying them on DSPs such as The Trade Desk, DV360, or Meta

    • Creating and deploying machine learning targeting models for social, video, display, and/or email campaigns

    • Designing and implementing A/B tests to measure the incremental lift of new campaigns

  • Technical skills:

    • Advanced programming skills with experience using modern packages in Python or R; expertise in databases and SQL; familiarity with version control (e.g. Git)

    • Experience with AWS (or analogous) utilities, e.g., EC2, SageMaker, S3, Athena

    • Strong business intelligence and visualization skills, with the ability to speak to many different audiences

  • Ownership mentality: takes the initiative to identify, champion, and execute on the highest impact work

  • Define the problem: Ability to consider problems from first principles, with the instinct to use expertise and prior experience to guide but not dictate the solution

  • Preferred but not required:

    • Experience building and operationalizing media mix models

    • Experience using identity graphs to enhance targeting and measurement of marketing campaigns

    • Insurance industry experience


Don’t meet every single requirement?

Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Root, Inc., we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway!

Join us

At Root, we judge people based on the merit of their work, not who they are. If you are passionate about what this role entails and solving real problems, we encourage you to apply. We want to learn about you and what you can add to our team.

Who we are

We’re harnessing the power of technology to revolutionize insurance. Using machine learning and mobile telematic platforms, we’ve built one of the most innovative FinTech companies in the world. And we’re just getting started.

What draws people to Root

Our success is in large part due to our unwavering standards in hiring. We recognize that our products are only as good as the people building and promoting them. We want individuals who find solutions by going through the cycle of ideation to implementation with curiosity, rigor, and an analytical lens. Ask anyone who works here and you’ll hear similar reasons for why they joined:

Autonomy—for assertive self-starters, the opportunities to contribute are limitless.

Impact—by challenging the way it’s always been done, we solve problems that have a big impact on our business.

Collaboration—we encourage rich discussion and civil debate at every turn.

People—we are inspired by the collection of crazy-smart people around us.