About Upstart
At Upstart, we’re united by a mission that matters: to radically reduce the cost and complexity of borrowing for all Americans. Every day, we bring creativity, experimentation, and advanced AI to reshape access to credit, helping millions move forward financially with clarity and confidence.
As the leading AI lending marketplace, we partner with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit through technology that’s both radically intelligent and deeply human. Our platform runs over one million predictions per borrower using more than 1,800 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers. But the numbers only hint at the impact. Every idea, every voice, and every contribution moves us closer to a world where credit never stands between people and their financial progress.
We’re proudly digital-first, giving most Upstarters the flexibility to do their best work from wherever they thrive, alongside teammates across 80+ cities in the US and Canada. Digital-first doesn’t mean distant. We’re intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. And whether you choose to work primarily from home or collaborate in-person from one of our offices in Columbus, Austin, the Bay Area, or New York City (opening Summer 2026), you’ll have the support to work in the way that works best for you.
If you’re energized by tackling meaningful problems, excited to innovate with purpose, and motivated by work that truly matters, we’d love to hear from you.
The Team:
Upstart’s Marketplace Optimization team is responsible for optimizing market-level outcomes, balancing tradeoffs for borrowers, capital providers, and Upstart. The team builds the dynamic policy levers, matching and offer-selection logic, and monetization tooling that clear the marketplace, manage margins, and maximize capital utilization efficiency. Our mandate is to enable automated, data-driven decisions that improve originations, contribution margin, and capital efficiency while supporting new products and partner integrations.
As the Senior Engineering Manager on the team for Marketplace Optimization, you will lead high-impact engineering squads that turn marketplace strategy and ML-backed signals into reliable production systems. You’ll partner closely with Product, Machine Learning, and Capital Markets to deliver scalable capital routing, matching, and monetization automation capabilities that directly affect borrower outcomes and capital performance. You will set execution priorities, remove blockers, and develop engineers to ship production-grade services that are observable, performant, and safe for a regulated fintech environment.
How you’ll make an impact:
- Define and execute the team’s technical roadmap: deliver matching, offer-selection, monetization, and target-return logic and features that improve marketplace outcomes
- Build and grow a high-performing engineering team: hire, mentor, and develop engineers and ICs; establish clear expectations and career growth paths
- Drive technical excellence: own architecture and delivery decisions for scalable, fault-tolerant services, data pipelines, and APIs that integrate with ML models and capital systems
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, ML, Capital Markets, and Risk to translate business goals into prioritized, measurable engineering work
- Own operational reliability and observability: establish SLOs/SLIs, alerting, runbooks, and post-incident practices to ensure marketplace integrity and fast incident response
- Lead delivery and execution: unblock teams, manage technical and organizational risks, and ensure high-quality, timely releases while balancing speed and safety
What we’re looking for:
Minimum requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics, or a related field (or its equivalent) + 8 years of experience, including at least 3 years of direct people management experience.
- Proven success leading and scaling high-performing engineering teams (e.g., growing headcount, improving delivery metrics, or managing multiple squads)
- Demonstrated domain expertise in marketplace optimization, pricing/fee/monetization, or routing systems at scale
- Demonstrated ability to partner closely with Product, and ML teams to deploy models at scale and build scalable production ready systems
- Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences
- Strong analytical, organizational, and strategic thinking skills with a bias for action
Preferred Requirements:
- Hands-on familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), containerization and orchestration (Docker/Kubernetes), and scalable API design
- Experience with streaming and event architectures (e.g., Kafka, Pub/Sub) and modern data platforms
- Track record operating in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments and building systems that support auditability
- Background in statistics, economics, or applied ML domains
- Demonstrated success building observability and reliability practices (SLO/SLI design, monitoring, alerting, post-incident process) and scaling engineering processes across multiple teams
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 - As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.
#LI-REMOTE
#LI-MidSenior
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).
What you'll love
At Upstart, our benefits are designed to support your health, financial well-being, family, and personal growth. Here’s what you can expect:
- Competitive compensation, including base pay, bonus opportunities, and annual equity grants that vest quarterly
- Generous 401(k) plan with Upstart matching $2 for every $1 contributed, up to $15,000 per year
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with discounted stock purchase options for eligible employees
- Affordable medical, dental, and vision coverage, with multiple plan options - Upstart covers 90% to 100% of the cost depending on the plans you choose
- Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart for eligible plans
- Income protection benefits, including company-paid Basic Life, AD&D, and Short- and Long-Term Disability coverage, with options to purchase supplemental coverage
- Paid time off, sick and safe time, and company holidays
- Paid family and parental leave to support caregiving and major life moments
- Family-centered benefits through Carrot and Cleo, supporting fertility, parenthood, and caregiving
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offering mental health support and life-centered resources
- Financial wellness resources, including access to financial planning tools and a financial concierge service
- Annual wellness allowance to support your physical and emotional well-being and personal development, based on what matters most to you
- Annual productivity allowance to invest in relevant tools and resources you need to do your best work, no matter where you work from
- Connection and community through team events and onsites, all-company updates, and employee resource groups (ERGs)
- Onsite perks, including catered lunches and fully stocked micro-kitchens when working from one of our four offices, located in the Bay Area, Austin, Columbus, and New York City (opening Summer 2026!).
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
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