Senior Software Engineer, Marketplace Optimization

About Upstart

At Upstart, we’re united by a mission that matters: to radically reduce the cost and complexity of borrowing for all Americans. Every day, we bring creativity, experimentation, and advanced AI to reshape access to credit, helping millions move forward financially with clarity and confidence.

As the leading AI lending marketplace, we partner with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit through technology that’s both radically intelligent and deeply human. Our platform runs over one million predictions per borrower using more than 3,000 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers. But the numbers only hint at the impact. Every idea, every voice, and every contribution moves us closer to a world where credit never stands between people and their financial progress.

We’re proudly digital-first, giving most Upstarters the flexibility to do their best work from wherever they thrive, alongside teammates across 80+ cities in the US and Canada. Digital-first doesn’t mean distant. We’re intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. And whether you choose to work primarily from home or collaborate in-person from one of our offices in Columbus, Austin, the Bay Area, or New York City, you’ll have the support to work in the way that works best for you.

If you’re energized by tackling meaningful problems, excited to innovate with purpose, and motivated by work that truly matters, we’d love to hear from you.

The Team:

Marketplace Optimization builds the intelligent systems that power Upstart's AI lending marketplace. Our teams make real-time decisions about how borrowers are matched with capital, how offers are constructed, and how the marketplace evolves through experimentation. We solve complex optimization problems at scale, balancing borrower experience, investor objectives, profitability, and operational efficiency while operating some of the most critical services at Upstart.

Within Marketplace Optimization, engineers join one of two closely related teams:

Monetization builds the marketplace services that optimize marketplace economics through origination fees, offer construction, and experimentation capabilities that allow the business to rapidly evolve monetization strategies.

Matching & Offer Selection builds the real-time decision engine that intelligently matches borrowers with capital providers while balancing borrower outcomes, investor commitments, marketplace efficiency, and business objectives.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you'll partner closely with Product, Machine Learning, Pricing, Capital Markets, Lending Partnerships, and Analytics to build highly reliable distributed systems that power millions of lending decisions. You'll work on systems at the heart of Upstart's lending marketplace. The software your team builds determines how borrowers are matched with capital, how offers are constructed, and how marketplace decisions are executed in real time. It's an opportunity to solve challenging distributed systems problems while building software with direct, measurable impact on borrowers, investors, and the business.

How you’ll make an impact

Design, build, and operate highly available backend services that power Upstart's real-time lending marketplace.

Develop scalable systems that enable rapid experimentation while maintaining the reliability of business-critical production services.

Partner with Product, Machine Learning, Capital Markets, and Analytics to translate complex business problems into elegant technical solutions.

Build flexible platform capabilities that enable new marketplace optimization and monetization strategies.

Improve the scalability, observability, and operational excellence of systems responsible for real-time marketplace decisions.

Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, testing, and operational ownership of critical production systems.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)

5+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend or distributed systems

Experience developing production services using one or more of Ruby on Rails, Python, or Kotlin

Experience designing APIs and building scalable distributed systems

Experience operating business-critical production services with an emphasis on reliability, monitoring, testing, and operational excellence