Principal Software Engineer, Core Pricing (Remote)

Upstart; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 195,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

401k with company match

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Comprehensive health coverage

Paid time off

Job summary

Upstart is seeking a Principal Software Engineer on Core Pricing, a remote role in the United States. You will shape the long-term architecture for pricing systems across multiple product lines and collaborate with Engineering, ML, and Product teams to deliver scalable, low-latency services.

You will mentor senior technical leaders, drive platform investments, and balance delivery with reliability and technical debt while guiding cross-functional decision-making.

Qualifications

• Ability to set architecture and technical direction for large distributed systems.
• Experience designing or operating Tier 0/Tier 1 services with strict latency and availability requirements.
• Strong API, service-oriented architecture and cloud infrastructure know-how.
• Willingness to work primarily in Python environment while leveraging other languages.
• Proven track record mentoring senior engineers and influencing technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Define the cross-company technical vision and roadmap for Upstart's pricing platform across Pricing, Personal Loans, Auto, HELOC, ML, and Product teams.
• Lead architecture evolution toward modular platform capabilities across loan products.
• Design Tier 0/Tier 1 services with emphasis on latency, throughput, and correctness.
• Collaborate with ML scientists to bound model boundaries with production systems.
• Balance needs of engineering, ML, and product teams and make pragmatic trade-offs.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Python

Kotlin

Java

API design

Cloud AWS

Kubernetes

Microservices

Observability

Mentoring engineers

Cross-org leadership

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering/Mathematics or related field

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Microservices

Event-driven systems

Observability tools

Job description

Upstart is seeking a Principal Software Engineer on Core Pricing, a remote role in the United States. You will shape the long-term architecture for pricing systems across multiple product lines and collaborate with Engineering, ML, and Product teams to deliver scalable, low-latency services.

You will mentor senior technical leaders, drive platform investments, and balance delivery with reliability and technical debt while guiding cross-functional decision-making.