Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Ro is a direct-to-patient healthcare company with a mission of helping patients achieve their health goals by delivering the easiest, most effective care possible. Ro is the only company to offer nationwide telehealth, labs, and pharmacy services. This is enabled by Ro's vertically integrated platform that helps patients achieve their goals through a convenient, end-to-end healthcare experience spanning from diagnosis, to delivery of medication, to ongoing care. Since 2017, Ro has helped millions of patients, including one in every county in the United States, and in 98% of primary care deserts.

Ro has been recognized as a Fortune Best Workplace in New York and Health Care for four consecutive years In 2023, Ro was also named Best Workplace for Parents for the third year in a row. In 2022, Ro was listed as a CNBC Disruptor 50.

The Role
We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the team at Ro. In this role, you will operate as a technical leader, mentor, and architect — helping shape the future of our platform and driving the delivery of systems that directly impact patients and providers.

You will partner closely with other engineers, product managers, designers, and cross-functional leads to define and deliver technical roadmaps that balance immediate product needs with long-term technical stability, scalability, and maintainability. As a Staff Engineer, you will not only design and build robust distributed systems but also mentor engineers, influence engineering culture, and play a key role in technical decision-making.

If you thrive in complex problem spaces, enjoy shaping technical direction at scale, and are motivated by the opportunity to improve healthcare through technology, we'd love to hear from you.

What You'll Do

• Design and build scalable, reliable, and resilient distributed services using Python and FastAPI
• Operate as an owner and technical leader within your team's domain and proactively assess and improve system performance and reliability
• Drive engineering excellence through best practices in testing, monitoring, observability, and performance optimization
• Define and own technical roadmaps, breaking down ambiguous and complex problem spaces into clear project plans and deliverables
• Mentor and collaborate with engineers across levels, raising the technical bar and fostering growth across the team
• Lead cross-functional technical efforts — working closely with product managers, designers, and engineers from adjacent teams to ensure alignment and technical integrity across boundaries
• Participate in on-call rotations to ensure reliability of production systems

What You'll Bring To The Team

• years of software engineering experience, including experience in roles involving technical leadership
• Experience architecting, designing and building scalable web applications and distributed systems
• Proficiency with Python, relational databases, and frameworks like FastAPI or Django, with hands-on experience in metrics instrumentation and data-driven performance tuning leveraging Ro's load testing infrastructure and tools like Datadog
• Proven track record of scaling complex, data-intensive backend systems through rapid growth (ideally in a mid-to-late stage startup environment), ensuring high performance and availability
• Deep understanding of distributed systems-data consistency, communication patterns, and service boundaries-backed by hands-on experience building and maintaining data-intensive production systems
• Strong sense of ownership, with the ability to understand and break down complex problem spaces into technical roadmaps
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, foster collaboration, and set technical direction

Bonus Skills

• Experience in telehealth or other highly regulated industries
• Experience with decoupling monolithic applications into distributed asynchronous services

We've Got You Covered

• Full medical, dental, and vision insurance + OneMedical membership
• Healthcare and Dependent Care FSA
• 401(k) with company match
• Flexible PTO
• Wellbeing + Learning & Growth reimbursements
• Paid parental leave + Fertility benefits
• Pet insurance
• Student loan refinancing
• Virtual resources for mindfulness, counseling, and fitness

The target base salary for this position ranges from $211,700 to $250,000, in addition to a competitive equity and benefits package (as applicable). When determining compensation, we analyze and carefully consider several factors, including location, job-related knowledge, skills and experience. These considerations may cause your compensation to vary.

Ro recognizes the power of in-person collaboration, while supporting the flexibility to work anywhere in the United States. For our Ro'ers in the tri-state (NY) area, you will join us at HQ on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For those outside of the tri-state area, you will be able to join in-person collaborations throughout the year (i.e., during team on-sites).

At Ro, we believe that our diverse perspectives are our biggest strengths — and that embracing them will create real change in healthcare. As an equal opportunity employer, we provide equal opportunity in all aspects of employment, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, training and promotion, termination, and any other terms and conditions of employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, familial status, age, disability and/or any other legally protected classification protected by federal, state, or local law.

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