Principal Software Engineer, Product

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>

We’re a small, senior engineering team at Upstart focused on launching a new product that aims to expand access to responsible and affordable credit. Operating like a startup within the company, we move quickly and work autonomously. With a greenfield codebase and an AI-native development approach, we’re not just building a product—we’re redefining how lean, high-impact engineering teams work.

• Set technical direction and lead architectural design for core backend systems that power a new consumer credit product.
• Build distributed, event-driven services that are reliable, observable, and scalable—designed for long-term evolution.
• Drive zero-to-one product development in collaboration with cross-functional partners, translating ambiguous product goals into high-impact solutions.
• Champion engineering velocity and quality by shaping patterns, practices, and tooling across the stack.
• Lead with an AI-native mindset—leveraging and integrating AI tools to improve development workflows, reduce friction, and accelerate impact.
• Serve as a technical mentor and thought leader within a high-performing, fast-moving team.
• Influence product direction through technical insights, customer empathy, and an ability to balance tradeoffs between speed, scale, and quality.

• 8+ years of experience designing and building backend systems in production, with a focus on consumer-scale applications.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and event-driven architectures (Kafka, Kinesis, SQS, etc.), including experience with idempotency, retries, and fault tolerance.
• Strong command of an object-oriented programming language (e.g., Java, Kotlin, C#, Python, Ruby), along with experience working with APIs, databases, and caching systems.
• Proven success leading complex, zero-to-one product development in ambiguous or fast-changing environments.
• Demonstrated ability to influence product strategy through technical leadership and user-centric thinking.
• Track record of building with observability and operational excellence in mind (metrics, logs, traces, alerting, etc.).
• Active use of AI tools in engineering, with a forward-looking perspective on how AI is reshaping software development.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills; able to align teams and advocate for high-impact solutions across functions.

• Experience leading technical initiatives at B2C fintech or high-scale consumer technology companies.
• Background in payments, credit, or transactional systems with high reliability and regulatory requirements.
• Familiarity with schema management and safe data migrations (e.g., Protobuf, Avro) in distributed systems.
• History of setting architectural direction and influencing engineering culture in high-growth environments.
• Entrepreneurial mindset—comfortable wearing multiple hats, operating autonomously, and navigating early-stage product phases.
• Passion for building products that expand access and improve outcomes for underserved users.
• Demonstrated interest in agentic or AI-assisted systems and enthusiasm for shaping the future of AI-native software development.

This role is available in the following locations:
Remote, San Mateo, Columbus, Austin.

This team operates across all U.S. time zones.

This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions. These occur 3 days per quarter at an Upstart office. If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.

• Competitive Compensation (base + bonus & equity)
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart
• Generou…