Posted 4 months ago

Staff Software Engineer, Backend

New York, NYHybridFull-time

AI Summary

Staff Software Engineer, Backend — technical leader and architect designing, building, and operating scalable distributed services that directly impact patient care.

About this role

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 in nearly every single county in the United States, including 99% of primary care deserts.

Ro is consistently recognized as a top workplace in Health Care, in New York, and for Women and Parents—earning more than 20 honors from Fortune, Great Place to Work, and PEOPLE since 2021. In 2025 alone, we ranked top 5 among medium workplaces in Health Care and New York, and top 50 nationwide.

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

7 - 10+ 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