Senior Software Engineer, Foundations

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 Foundations team builds and maintains the large-scale data platforms that support Growth marketing initiatives across the business. The team powers audience segmentation, marketing campaign enablement, and user session attribution systems that directly influence customer acquisition and loan conversion outcomes. As a Senior Software Engineer at Upstart, you will help scale and extend backend data systems that enable high-quality, reliable marketing data workflows. You will partner closely with engineering, product, and marketing stakeholders to improve data availability, maintainability, and observability while supporting business-critical marketing operations. How you’ll make an impact Build and maintain scalable backend systems and data pipelines that support audience segmentation and marketing attribution workflows Partner with product managers, marketers, and engineers to deliver data solutions that support customer acquisition and conversion goals Extend existing data infrastructure to support increasing data volumes, evolving business requirements, and new integrations Contribute to data quality initiatives by implementing monitoring, validation, and guardrail mechanisms across critical datasets Participate in technical discussions around architecture, access patterns, and platform scalability to support long-term platform growth Minimum Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics, or a related field (or its equivalent) + 4 years of experience 5+ years of experience building and maintaining backend distributed systems or large-scale data platforms Experience working with data processing systems, databases, or data pipelines in production environments Experience implementing fault tolerance, monitoring, and observability practices for backend systems Experience collaborating cross-functionally with engineering, product, or business stakeholders to deliver technical solutions Preferred Qualifications Knowledge of data modeling and schema design best practices for large-scale data systems Experience supporting marketing technology, attribution, or customer segmentation platforms Familiarity with data governance, privacy, and PII security considerations Ability to balance short-term feature delivery with long-term platform maintainability and scalability Experience contributing to architectural discussions and improving