Senior Backend Engineer - Identity & Security (Remote)

Upstart; Northern (KY); Remote; USD 167,000 - 242,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation with equity

401(k) with company match

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Comprehensive health coverage

Wellness & gym/onsite perks

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Upstart is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Identity team to build secure backend systems powering login, account management, authentication, and authorization. You will own projects from design through delivery and collaborate with Product, Information Security, and Application Security to deliver secure experiences at scale.

This role is primarily backend focused; frontend contributions are a plus but not required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience plus 4+ years in software engineering.
• Experience designing, building, testing, and maintaining production backend software or services.
• Experience owning software engineering projects through multiple stages of the development lifecycle.
• Experience designing or integrating APIs, services, or other components within distributed production systems.
• Experience applying software engineering practices including code review, automated testing, debugging, and production support.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate backend systems powering login, account management, authentication, and authorization across Upstart products.
• Own engineering projects from problem definition and technical design through implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing improvement.
• Balance security requirements with customer experience, protecting data while reducing friction.
• Partner with Product, Information Security, Application Security, and engineering teams to deliver secure capabilities and influence product direction.
• Identify opportunities to improve reliability, maintainability, and security of interconnected systems and establish engineering practices across Identity domain.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools to accelerate learning and delivery while applying engineering judgment.

Skills

Backend software

APIs & services

Lifecycle ownership

Code review & testing

Production support

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field

Tools

Cursor

Claude Code

Job description

Upstart is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Identity team to build secure backend systems powering login, account management, authentication, and authorization. You will own projects from design through delivery and collaborate with Product, Information Security, and Application Security to deliver secure experiences at scale.

This role is primarily backend focused; frontend contributions are a plus but not required.