Senior Software Engineer, Event Bus, Experimentation and gRPC

Upstart

4d•Remote

About The Position

Upstart is the leading AI lending marketplace partnering with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit. By leveraging Upstart's AI marketplace, Upstart-powered banks and credit unions can have higher approval rates and lower loss rates across races, ages, and genders, while simultaneously delivering the exceptional digital-first lending experience their customers demand. More than 80% of borrowers are approved instantly, with zero documentation to upload. Upstart is a digital-first company, which means that most Upstarters live and work anywhere in the United States. However, we also have offices in San Mateo, California; Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas; and New York City, NY (opening Summer 2026). Most Upstarters join us because they connect with our mission of enabling access to effortless credit based on true risk. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Upstart, we’d love to hear from you! The Team Upstart’s Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC team is responsible for building frameworks and tooling to support Event Driven Architectures, safe and measurable roll out of new features, and efficient service to service communication. We do this by owning the build process and libraries for the four primarily supported languages at Upstart (Ruby, Kotlin, Python, and TypeScript). These platform products allow Upstart engineers to use them in a simple and secure way. Ease of use, performance, data quality, observability, and security are our guiding principles. As a Senior Software Engineer on Upstart’s Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC team, you are empowered to design and implement high impact, cross cutting solutions that touch nearly every service within Upstart. We are a small and high impacting team contributing to Upstart’s North Star Architecture and need a product-oriented engineer who is excited to contribute across Event Bus, Experimentation, and gRPC internal tooling. Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote, San Mateo, Columbus, Austin Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones. Travel Requirements - As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. This team also has regular onsite collaboration sessions. These occur roughly once per quarter (~3 days at a time) in one of our main offices (Columbus, OH, Austin, TX or San Mateo, CA). If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field
5+ years of professional experience
Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
Strong proficiency in one or more of Kotlin, Java, Python, Ruby, or Typescript programming languages
Proficiency in automated testing patterns
Experience in building highly observable systems

Nice To Haves

Experience with Kotlin, Python, Ruby, or Typescript
Experience with Kafka
Experience with gRPC
Experience with A/B testing and/or Feature Flagging
Strong sense of ownership and accountability for the quality and timely delivery of work
Ability to thrive both in self-directed work environments and in collaborative settings, contributing positively to team dynamic.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and development of new features and improvements to existing features.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand requirements and bring those insights into building an impactful roadmap for the team
Establish best practices for achieving an Event Driven Architecture, safe feature rollout, and service to service, API design.
Mentor junior engineers and promote a culture of technical excellence
Contribute to quality improvements within our team and the engineering organization in a meaningful way

Benefits

Competitive Compensation (base + bonus & equity)
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart
401(k) with 100% company match up to $4,500 and immediate vesting and after-tax savings
Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
Life and disability insurance
Generous holiday, vacation, sick and safety leave
Supportive parental, family care, and military leave programs
Annual wellness, technology & ergonomic reimbursement programs
Social activities including team events and onsites, all-company updates, employee resource groups (ERGs), and other interest groups such as book clubs, fitness, investing, and volunteering
Catered lunches + snacks & drinks when working in offices