Principal Product Manager, Engagement

About Upstart

Upstart is the leading AI lending marketplace partnering with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit. By leveraging Upstart's AI marketplace, Upstart-powered banks and credit unions can have higher approval rates and lower loss rates across races, ages, and genders, while simultaneously delivering the exceptional digital-first lending experience their customers demand. More than 80% of borrowers are approved instantly, with zero documentation to upload.

Upstart is a digital-first company, which means that most Upstarters live and work anywhere in the United States. However, we also have offices in San Mateo, California;
Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.

Most Upstarters join us because they connect with our mission of enabling access to effortless credit based on true risk. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Upstart, we’d love to hear from you!

Upstart's Growth team is dedicated to creating a seamless product experience that allows customers to effortlessly discover and access Upstart’s credit products, both for the first time and on an ongoing basis. By building exceptional, customer‑centric experiences, this team plays a crucial role in making Upstart the premier destination for consumer credit, driving growth and unifying Upstart’s product portfolio into a cohesive, multi-product marketplace.

As a Principal Product Manager focused on User Engagement, you’ll lead a core pillar of our Growth strategy – driving user activity, retention, and repeat usage through compelling, value‑driven product experiences. You will shape how customers interact with Upstart beyond the initial transaction, building our in‑product experience, and touchpoints that deepen trust, promote financial wellness, and ultimately unlock new monetization pathways.

In this highly cross‑functional role, you'll operate at the intersection of product, design, engineering, data science, and marketing to reimagine how users stay engaged with our platform. You’ll balance bold bets with iterative testing, and combine behavioral insights with product mechanics to build delightful, habit‑forming experiences that serve both user needs and business outcomes.

• Define and deliver the vision for engagement across Upstart’s ecosystem, building experiences across web and mobile that keep users returning and pave the path to upsell and cross‑sell.
• Champion the user journey, crafting intuitive and rewarding experiences that build trust and increase lifetime value. You’ll partner with consumer research, product marketing, and data to ground your work in real‑world behaviors and motivations.
• Drive experimentation at scale, using rapid iteration and clear metrics to test what works. You’ll bring clarity to ambiguity by identifying levers for activation, retention, and repeat engagement, and aligning stakeholders around the most promising paths forward.
• Lead with influence, collaborating across product lines and teams to stitch together a cohesive experience across our suite of offerings, ensuring engagement efforts ladder up to shared company goals.
• Balance vision and execution, making strategic trade‑offs across short-term optimization and long‑term differentiation. You'll help shape a roadmap that prioritizes measurable impact while investing in foundational capabilities for sustained growth.

• 10+ years of product management experience, with a strong track record driving consumer engagement, growth, or retention for digital products.
• Deep fluency in product discovery and hypothesis‑driven development, including A/B testing, experimentation frameworks, and success metric definition.
• Exceptional collaboration skills, with a proven ability to align diverse stakeholders - from executive leaders to cross‑functional partners - around a shared strategy.
• A user‑first mindset, with the ability to distill complex customer insights into elegant, high‑utility product experiences.
• Strong judgment and prioritization skills, able to identify high‑leverage opportunities and navigate trade‑offs with confidence and clarity.

• Experience building…