Remote Applied Scientist — Unsecured Underwriting ML

Upstart; United States; Remote; USD 142,000 - 196,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Health benefits

401(k) matching

Remote-friendly

Paid time off

Job summary

Upstart is seeking an Applied Scientist to advance its Unsecured Underwriting ML models. You will research and implement enhancements to our core underwriting framework, driving meaningful improvements in credit decisioning while upholding reliability and responsible oversight.

You will partner with engineering to deploy experiments, evaluate model performance, and translate findings into production-ready solutions that scale with our growing platform and data.

Qualifications

• Graduate degree in mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics, physics, econometrics, operations research, computer science, or a related quantitative field.
• 0–2 years of experience conducting machine learning, statistical modeling, or applied quantitative research in an academic or industry setting.
• Experience developing and evaluating machine learning or statistical models using Python.
• Demonstrated knowledge of probability, statistics, and machine learning methods.
• Experience designing experiments or validation analyses to assess model accuracy, reliability, or predictive performance.

Responsibilities

• Research machine learning and statistical approaches that improve the predictive performance of unsecured underwriting models.
• Design, implement, and evaluate model enhancements using rigorous experimentation and validation methods.
• Analyze model performance and downstream effects to confirm that proposed changes improve decisioning reliably.
• Partner with various engineering teams to support technical reviews, implementation, and deployment.
• Translate research findings into clear recommendations, documented methodologies, and production-ready solutions.

Skills

Machine Learning

Statistical Modeling

Python

Experiment Design

Model Evaluation

Feature Engineering

Research & Analysis

Communication

Education

Graduate degree in mathematics, statistics or related field

PhD in a quantitative field

Tools

Python

Job description

Upstart is seeking an Applied Scientist to advance its Unsecured Underwriting ML models. You will research and implement enhancements to our core underwriting framework, driving meaningful improvements in credit decisioning while upholding reliability and responsible oversight.

You will partner with engineering to deploy experiments, evaluate model performance, and translate findings into production-ready solutions that scale with our growing platform and data.