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He’s worked as a software engineer and a business analyst, as head of product and lead engineer. Today, he’s managing and building our growing team of engineers. Meet Andrew—better known at the office as “Shults”—Oscar’s Director of Engineering.
What brought you to Oscar?
Prior to Oscar, I was leading engineering at a small ad tech firm focused on out-of-home media. I had been there for a couple of years, and was looking for something that felt a little more meaningful –something that I felt a personal connection to. Around that time, a recruiter reached out to me and I started chatting with Oscar. When I started, there were only about 20 people. And that was just under two years ago. Today we’re at about 320 (50 of which are engineers)…and still hiring!
What was it like in the beginning?
We were small, and working on getting a whole bunch of stuff out the door by December 31st. It was exciting, as we really were all hands on deck to try to build this company. I remember things like sitting down with Mario, our CEO, late into the night, working to add a cost estimator to the Care Router.
What’s your job like today?
My day-to-day now has become much more strategic. It’s great because I’m excited to hand the baton off on some of the projects that I started so they can reach the next level. I spend a lot of time looking at our external platforms—for members, providers, brokers, and our staff. For each, we’re constantly determining what we want to include, and how best to execute so the experience feels integrated. I’m also involved with hiring, and so I spend time meeting with candidates and talking about what’s going on at Oscar.
From the beginning, you’ve been pretty deeply involved with the Care Router. Can you talk a little about that?
Care Router, which allows users to type in conditions and get suggested actions, was one of the early projects I worked on, and we’ve recently revamped it based on everything that we’ve learned since launch. The reason we view it as our flagship is that it tackles a lot of stuff that other insurance companies don’t do. It uses natural language search, for instance. A member can type in anything, and we’ll translate it into a condition or a procedure. We’re trying to be really intelligent about this matching up process, and capturing intent so that we better understand why people are searching for, say, an ENT. If they’re doing it because they have a sinus infection, we can suggest that they speak to one of our doctors using our free Doctor on Call service. Since most of these infections can be treated virtually, we’re giving our members a faster, cheaper, and more convenient option. Basically, we’re giving people the tools that make it easier for them to take action.
How would you describe engineering at Oscar?
We’re a tech company at heart, so a big part of our strategy is focused on how we can use that mindset to solve specific problems. We always want to look at root causes of problems or challenges. The engineers here are very self-empowered; we like to build tools that, by simplifying processes, enable us to work on big projects on our own. For example, a year and a half ago, we started making a big investments in a tool called Mesos that’s taken a lot of the complexity out of getting things up and running. Since then, we’ve built a lot on top of it, and we’re pushing further in that direction.
And life at Oscar as a whole?
Working at the intersection of health care and technology, there are endless opportunities. So you always have the excitement of innovative projects. We’re always thinking, what can we do different from our competitors, and we’re using incredible tools and data to get those answers.