Job Title: Senior Backend Engineer

Company Name: Upstart

Job Url: https://boards.greenhouse.io/embed/job_app?token=7531105&utm_source=jobright&jr_id=698aed700f6f7e7a2ce63860

Job Description: How you’ll make an impact:
Design and deliver production grade backend systems that power a new consumer revolving credit product.

Own services that support underwriting, pricing, line management, transactions, ledgering, and servicing with strong guarantees around correctness, reliability, and observability.

Break down ambiguous product and economic requirements into clear technical designs and milestones, driving projects independently from design through launch and iteration.

Partner with machine learning engineers to productionize models and integrate AI driven decisioning into real time user flows with strict latency and reliability constraints.

Collaborate closely with mobile engineers to ensure backend systems support seamless, high quality consumer experiences.

Contribute to architectural decisions in a greenfield environment while integrating thoughtfully with Upstart’s broader lending platform.

Apply generative AI in practical ways, shaping customer facing AI features as well as internal tooling, automation, testing, and developer productivity workflows.

Raise the bar for engineering rigor through strong API contracts, data modeling, testing strategy, monitoring, and operational excellence.

 

What we’re looking for: 
Minimum requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics, or a related field (or its equivalent) + 4 years of experience

Strong experience designing distributed systems and event driven architectures, including handling real world concerns such as idempotency, retries, race conditions, data consistency, and failure recovery.

Proficiency in an object oriented programming language such as Python, Java, Kotlin, C#, or Ruby, and experience designing APIs and working with relational databases and caching layers.

Experience shipping consumer facing features end to end, with a clear understanding of performance, reliability, and user impact.

Fluency with generative AI systems in production, including hands on experience building, integrating, or operating Gen AI powered features or workflows. Comfortable working with LLM APIs, prompt design, evaluation, guardrails, and monitoring in real world systems.

Demonstrated ability to operate autonomously, lead medium to large scoped projects, and make sound technical tradeoffs in ambiguous environments.

Strong communication skills and comfort collaborating closely with cross functional partners across product, finance, compliance, and operations.

 

Preferred qualifications:

Experience in fintech, credit, payments, or other regulated financial systems.

Familiarity with revolving credit products, transaction processing systems, or ledger based architectures.

Experience building systems that bridge consumer applications and capital markets or funding infrastructure.

Experience building systems that bridge consumer applications and capital markets or funding infrastructure.

Entrepreneurial mindset—comfortable in dynamic environments, with a bias toward action and ownership.

Strong product instincts and interest in understanding the economics behind pricing, risk, and unit economics.

Hands on experience applying generative AI to customer facing features, internal tools, or engineering workflows.

Entrepreneurial mindset with a bias toward ownership, speed, and practical impact.

 

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote, San Mateo, Columbus, Austin 

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates across all U.S. time zones.

Travel Requirements - 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.

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-MidSenior