Data Scientist II - Performance Marketing

Root Insurance

Root Insurance

Marketing & Communications, Data Science
United States · Remote
Posted on Nov 22, 2023

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.

A Data Scientist II at Root is responsible for the end-to-end development of statistical methods and algorithms. This includes taking high-level business challenges, translating them into a concrete, quantitative framework, and shepherding solutions from R&D into production. Root’s Performance Marketing team consists of data scientists and analysts who are responsible for a significant portion of Root’s advertising budget. The team collaborates with partner companies and members of internal departments including other Data Science teams, Product, Actuarial, and Engineering.

The Performance Marketing team is looking for a Data Scientist II to improve our customer targeting models and measurement methodologies. We require a high degree of statistical certainty that our marketing investments are driving results. We have had recent success with targeting and measurement in our lower marketing funnel campaigns and seek to accelerate our growth by improving our experimentation, optimization, and automation.

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 and offices in other locations to give more flexibility and more choice about how we live and work.

Salary Range: $104,600 - $130,700

How You Will Make an Impact

  • Applying principled methods to marketing forecasts and ad bidding methodologies

  • Targeting high-value customers and providing evidence of an attractive return on high eight figures of advertising investment

  • Designing and conducting experiments to improve marketing effectiveness

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

  • Automating bidding strategies to increase the agility and efficiency of the marketing team

  • Effectively communicating insights from complex analyses

  • Taking end-to-end ownership of problem domains and continuously improving upon quantitative solutions

What You Will Need to Succeed

  • Advanced degree in a quantitative discipline (PhD preferred) and/or 2+ years of applying advanced quantitative techniques to problems in industry

  • Strong demonstrable knowledge of topics such as statistical modeling, machine learning, and numerical optimization

  • Exceptional communicator and storyteller with strong data visualization skills

  • Strong programming skills with experience using modern packages in either R or Python

  • Experience with databases and SQL

  • Demonstrated experience building, validating, and applying statistical machine learning methods to real world problems

  • Demonstrates ownership mentality, taking initiative to find, prioritize, and be accountable for the highest impact work

  • Ability to frame functional problem statements for the next 1-2 months, consistently making good decisions about the right path to follow in a well-defined problem space

  • Preferred but not required:

    • Experience using version control (Git) and cloud computing (AWS)

    • Insurance and/or marketing 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.