Senior Data Scientist, Growth

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

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.

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 owns 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 team, you’ll help deepen Root’s brand presence by building the measurement and experimentation infrastructure needed to grow our mid- and upper-funnel marketing.

You’ll develop causal frameworks, predictive models, and tools to link brand investment to business outcomes like quote starts, binds, and lifetime value. This role is R&D-heavy, focused on high-uncertainty problems with delayed feedback loops. You’ll also contribute to brand tracking and survey research, help set measurement standards, and advise stakeholders on interpreting results and allocating spend.

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: $126,000 - $157,500 (Bonus and LTI eligible)

How You Will Make an Impact

• Design measurement frameworks that quantify the impact of brand marketing in mid- and upper-funnel channels, separating signal from noise over long time horizons

• Prototype and test brand strategies using structured experiments, focusing on downstream outcomes like engagement, quote starts, and lifetime value

• Improve the efficiency of brand generation by optimizing targeting, creative, and channel mix through data-driven experimentation and modeling

• Translate research findings into clear, actionable insights that inform brand strategy and investment decisions

• 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 4+ years of applying advanced quantitative techniques to problems in industry

• Quantitative brand marketing experience:

  • Experience measuring brand impact in mid- and upper-funnel channels using causal inference methods (e.g., synthetic control, Bayesian models, geo-testing

  • Skilled in designing and analyzing brand lift studies and survey-based measurement

  • Developed data-driven brand strategies and deployed them through DSPs like The Trade Desk, DV360, or Meta

  • Built and applied ML models to improve targeting for brand-focused campaigns across social, video, and display

  • Designed and implemented experiments to quantify the incremental effect of brand exposure on downstream metrics

• 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 with web analytics, customer journeys, measuring early engagement

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

  • Insurance industry experience

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!

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.

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.

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.