Senior Manager, Data Science

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:

Marketing Science sits within Upstart's Growth, Product, and Ops Analytics team and answers two questions for the business: is our marketing working, and where should it go next? The team's analysts and data scientists are embedded with growth marketing across every channel that brings borrowers to Upstart, including direct mail, paid search and social, video, mobile, email, brand campaigns, and lending partnerships. Within a channel, they work out what's performing and how to make it better. Across channels, they look at how spend should be divided and how each channel affects the others.

At Upstart, a marketing dollar only pays off if it reaches someone our AI models approve and who then takes the loan, so the team's questions go well past the click. And since we see the full path from first touch to funded loan, the team can measure marketing against that outcome rather than a stand-in for it.

You'll lead that team and work directly with Upstart's marketing leaders, acting as a thought partner to optimize for what is best for the company. We're looking for an experienced data science and analytics leader who can raise the impact this team has on Upstart's growth.

How you’ll make an impact

Lead a team of analysts and data scientists who are embedded with each marketing channel and responsible end to end for its work

Put experimentation at the center of the team's work: decide which tests are worth running across channels, and make sure the results change what marketing does next

Guide the team's analysis toward explaining why a channel's performance moved and what marketing should do about it

Push the team to bring forward work nobody asked for, like analysis that spots a problem or an opportunity, before marketing knows to ask

Hold a high bar on the team's measurement work, including incrementality tests and attribution, and ensure high-quality outputs

Work with marketing, finance, and product leaders to set the team's roadmap, and bring that business context back so your team works on the right problems

Hire and develop a team that marketing leaders treat as a partner, not a reporting servic

Minimum Qualifications

10+ years in data science and analytics, including 5+ years managing teams of analysts and data scientists

Technical depth across the work a marketing analytics and data science team does, including reporting, experiments, causal inference, and attribution, and a clear sense of which approach a given question needs

Enough SQL and Python to check your team's work yourself

A record of hiring well and growing people into more senior roles

Good judgment in ambiguous, greenfield areas: you can frame a question nobody has asked yet and decide whether it's worth the team's time

Clear written and verbal communication with marketing, finance, product, and technical audiences, and the willingness to tell a senior leader when the evidence doesn't support their plan