Software Engineer, Engagement

Upstart is a leading AI lending marketplace focused on reducing the cost and complexity of borrowing for Americans. The Software Engineer in Engagement will design and develop full-stack systems that enhance user engagement through financial health tools and gamified features, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to drive customer value.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and development of full-stack systems that power new engagement experiences such as credit health monitoring, financial wellness tools, and gamified features
• Architect and build scalable microservices and event-driven systems (e.g., Kafka-based streams) to ingest, process, and surface user credit and financial data in real time
• Partner closely with Product, Product Marketing, and Design to translate ambiguous 0→1 concepts into robust, user-facing features that drive repeat engagement and long-term customer value
• Collaborate with Legal and Compliance to ensure new features meet regulatory and data governance requirements
• Optimize and experiment on key user surfaces—supporting A/B testing, iteration, and performance improvements across authenticated and unauthenticated experiences
• Contribute to the long-term vision of Upstart’s credit health and financial wellness ecosystem, including features that help users understand and improve the factors that influence their credit and borrowing power
• Help scale production systems across the stack, improving reliability, observability, and performance as adoption grows

Requirements:

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong backend focus
• Experience building and maintaining production-grade applications using strongly typed languages such as Java, Kotlin, C#, C, or similar
• Hands-on experience designing and developing microservices and distributed systems
• Experience consuming and processing event streams or working with messaging/queue systems (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, Celery, or similar)
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and drive projects from concept through launch
• Experience collaborating cross-functionally with Product and Design to deliver customer-facing features
• Experience building full-stack applications, with familiarity in React and/or Next.js
• Experience leading or playing a key role in 0→1 product initiatives
• Experience scaling high-traffic, consumer-facing applications across the stack
• Exposure to financial services, fintech, credit systems, or financial wellness products
• Experience supporting experimentation frameworks, A/B testing, and data-driven product optimization
• Familiarity with data modeling and graph-based representations of user or credit data
• Passion for building engaging user experiences that drive repeat usage and long-term customer value