Principal Software Engineer, Personal Loans

Upstart is a leading AI lending marketplace focused on reducing the cost and complexity of borrowing for all Americans. The Principal Software Engineer will set the technical direction for the applicant funnel, drive the architecture of the loan journey, and lead large cross-team initiatives to maximize originations while maintaining trust and compliance.

Responsibilities:

• Set technical direction for the applicant funnel
• Define and drive the architecture of the end-to-end "Got Rate → Funded Loan" journey
• Identify and resolve systemic bottlenecks impacting conversion, latency, and reliability
• Lead large, cross-team initiatives
• Own ambiguous, high-impact efforts that span Growth, Verifications Platform, Risk/Decisioning, and Lending Partners
• Align multiple teams around cohesive technical strategies and execution plans
• Evolve platform architecture
• Drive decomposition of tightly coupled systems into scalable, reusable services and APIs
• Enable cross-product reuse across unsecured lending while maintaining system integrity
• Translate complex business problems into systems
• Balance product velocity, risk constraints, compliance requirements, and long-term maintainability
• Partner deeply with product, risk, compliance, and operations to deliver measurable business outcomes
• Drive experimentation and intelligent automation
• Elevate experimentation frameworks and data-driven iteration across the funnel
• Identify and lead opportunities for AI-driven experiences (e.g., adaptive flows, conversational interfaces, automation)
• Raise the engineering bar
• Establish best practices in system design, observability, testing, and operational excellence
• Mentor senior and staff engineers and influence engineering culture across the organization
• Operate as a force multiplier
• Provide technical leadership beyond the team, influencing architecture and strategy across Personal Loans and adjacent domains
• Proactively identify long-term risks and opportunities, and drive alignment with leadership

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics, or a related field (or its equivalent) + 8 years of experience
• Proven experience operating at a Staff or Principal level, leading large, ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, service-oriented architectures, and system design at scale
• Demonstrated experience decomposing or modernizing tightly coupled systems into modular components/services with clear interfaces, while maintaining reliability and continuity
• Experience with experiment-driven development (instrumentation, A/B testing, analysis/iteration) and translating product goals into technical execution
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, able to explain complex technical topics to non-technical stakeholders
• Track record of successfully mentoring and developing other engineers around you while seeking out and appreciating constructive feedback
• Experience with full stack web development with Ruby on Rails, React, and cloud-native development (AWS preferred) and Docker, GitHub Actions, utilizing CI/CD technologies including infrastructure as code
• Familiarity with onboarding/funnel optimization in high-scale consumer products, including conversion and time-to-complete improvements
• Experience in the customer support tech domain (e.g., contact center platforms, customer engagement solutions, or conversational AI systems)
• Experience building in regulated or high-trust domains (e.g., fintech, lending, identity/verification, payments) where correctness and compliance are first-class constraints