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; Austin, Texas; and New York City, NY (opening Summer 2026).
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!
The Team
Upstart’s Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC team is responsible for building frameworks and tooling to support Event Driven Architectures, safe and measurable roll out of new features, and efficient service to service communication. We do this by owning the build process and libraries for the four primarily supported languages at Upstart (Ruby, Kotlin, Python, and TypeScript). These platform products allow Upstart engineers to use them in a simple and secure way. Ease of use, performance, data quality, observability, and security are our guiding principles.
As a Senior Software Engineer on Upstart’s Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC team, you are empowered to design and implement high impact, cross cutting solutions that touch nearly every service within Upstart. We are a small and high impacting team contributing to Upstart’s North Star Architecture and need a product-oriented engineer who is excited to contribute across Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC internal tooling.
Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote, San Mateo, Columbus, Austin
Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones.
Travel Requirements - As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. This team also has regular onsite collaboration sessions. These occur roughly once per quarter (~3 days at a time) in one of our main offices (Columbus, OH, Austin, TX or San Mateo, CA). If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.
How you’ll make an impact:
- Lead the design and development of new features and improvements to existing features.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand requirements and bring those insights into building an impactful roadmap for the team
- Establish best practices for achieving an Event Driven Architecture, safe feature rollout, and service to service, API design.
- Mentor junior engineers and promote a culture of technical excellence
- Contribute to quality improvements within our team and the engineering organization in a meaningful way
What we’re looking for:
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field
- 5+ years of professional experience
- Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
- Strong proficiency in one or more of Kotlin, Java, Python, Ruby, or Typescript programming languages
- Proficiency in automated testing patterns
- Experience in building highly observable systems
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with Kotlin, Python, Ruby, or Typescript
- Experience with Kafka
- Experience with gRPC
- Experience with A/B testing and/or Feature Flagging
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability for the quality and timely delivery of work
- Ability to thrive both in self-directed work environments and in collaborative settings, contributing positively to team dynamic.
What you'll love:
- Competitive Compensation (base + bonus & equity)
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart
- 401(k) with 100% company match up to $4,500 and immediate vesting and after-tax savings
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
- Life and disability insurance
- Generous holiday, vacation, sick and safety leave
- Supportive parental, family care, and military leave programs
- Annual wellness, technology & ergonomic reimbursement programs
- Social activities including team events and onsites, all-company updates, employee resource groups (ERGs), and other interest groups such as book clubs, fitness, investing, and volunteering
- Catered lunches + snacks & drinks when working in offices
At Upstart, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. The anticipated base salary for this position is expected to be within the below range. Your actual base pay will depend on your geographic location–with our “digital first” philosophy, Upstart uses compensation regions that vary depending on location. Individual pay is also determined by job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.
In addition, Upstart provides employees with target bonuses, equity compensation, and generous benefits packages (including medical, dental, vision, and 401k).
Upstart is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. Just as we are dedicated to improving access to affordable credit for all, we are committed to inclusive and fair hiring practices.
If you require reasonable accommodation in completing an application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please email [email protected]
https://www.upstart.com/candidate_privacy_policy
Top Skills
Similar Jobs at Upstart
What you need to know about the Chicago Tech Scene
Key Facts About Chicago Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 245,800; 5.2% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: McDonald’s, John Deere, Boeing, Morningstar
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, fintech, software, logistics technology
- Funding Landscape: $2.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Arch Venture Partners, MATH Venture Partners, Jump Capital, Hyde Park Venture Partners
- Research Centers and Universities: Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Institute of Technology, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
