Software Engineer II, Marketplace Optimization

Upstart

1d•$142,000 - $196,600•Remote

About The Position

Upstart’s Marketplace Optimization team is part of Capital Marketplace Engineering and optimizes the company’s two-sided capital marketplace. The team builds real-time decisioning systems, experimentation capabilities, and marketplace services across Matching & Offer Selection and Monetization, helping match borrowers with sources of capital while improving marketplace efficiency, investor utilization, and business outcomes. As a Software Engineer II, you will design and build systems that enable faster experimentation, more sophisticated marketplace decisioning, and new monetization capabilities. You will work on business-critical systems where engineering decisions can directly influence revenue, profitability, capital utilization, borrower experience, and marketplace scalability. This role is remote from the USA or Canada, except Quebec. The position includes opportunities for in-person team onsites and planning sessions; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for two to four consecutive days. The anticipated base salary range is $142,000–$196,600 USD for remote US roles and $136,000–$184,000 CAD for remote Canadian roles. Upstart also provides target bonuses, equity compensation, and benefits.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent, and two years of software engineering experience.
Experience designing, building, and operating scalable backend or distributed systems in production.
Experience developing production services using one or more modern backend programming languages.
Experience building and operating business-critical systems, including use of testing, monitoring, incident response, and root cause analysis.
Experience designing production systems where reliability, availability, observability, and correctness are critical.

Nice To Haves

Experience with marketplaces, financial systems, recommendation or matching engines, optimization systems, or experimentation platforms.
Knowledge of low-latency, high-throughput distributed system design and architecture.
Experience partnering with machine learning or data science teams to integrate models or data-driven decisioning into production systems.
Experience with Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Python, or Kotlin.
Ability to navigate ambiguous technical and business problems, evaluate tradeoffs, and collaborate across engineering, product, and business teams.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate scalable backend systems for real-time marketplace decisioning, matching, offer selection, and monetization.
Build flexible platform capabilities for experimentation with allocation strategies, marketplace economics, and monetization approaches while maintaining reliability and scalability.
Develop reliable, observable services that balance availability, latency, correctness, and operational simplicity across complex distributed systems.
Partner with Product, Machine Learning, Pricing Engineering, Data Science, Capital Markets, and Lending Partnerships to translate marketplace needs into technical solutions.
Make architectural decisions that simplify systems, reduce coupling across marketplace and adjacent platforms, and create reusable capabilities for future marketplace innovation.
Use Generative AI tools thoughtfully during implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and learning while maintaining ownership of technical decisions, security, code quality, and correctness.

Benefits

Competitive compensation, including base pay, bonus opportunities, and annual equity grants that vest quarterly.
401(k) or Group Retirement Savings Plan with a company match of $2 for every $1 contributed, up to $15,000 annually.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan with discounted stock purchase options for eligible US employees.
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage and wellness resources for US employees; supplemental health coverage for Canada.
Health Savings Account contributions for eligible US plans.
Life insurance and disability coverage.
Paid time off, sick leave, and company holidays in line with local requirements.
Paid family and parental leave; duration varies by country.
Family-centered benefits supporting fertility, parenthood, and caregiving.
Employee Assistance Program offering mental health support and life-centered resources.
Financial wellness resources, including financial planning tools and a financial concierge service for US employees.
Annual wellness allowance supporting physical and emotional well-being and personal development.
Annual productivity allowance for relevant tools and resources.
Team events, all-company updates, and employee resource groups.
Catered lunches and stocked micro-kitchens at offices in the Bay Area, Austin, Columbus, and New York City.