The Team

As a Principal Software Engineer on Upstart's Model Engineering team, you'll join an exciting team focused on providing engineering solutions to enable our research scientists and ML engineers to more effectively realize their value to the business. Machine Learning is critical to Upstart’s core business, and our greatest competitive advantage lies in the fact that we’re able to innovate on our AI engine quickly. This team’s mission is to solve software problems in the product that consume our ML models and build infrastructure to allow research scientists to move faster with respect to model training, development, testing, and deployment. 

• Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Columbus, Austin or Remote ^(#LI-REMOTE)
• Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on either the East or West Coast time zones.
• Travel Requirements - This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions up to six times annually split between the San Mateo, Columbus or Austin office locations. If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.

The Role

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Software Engineer to help architect the future of Upstart’s ML platform architecture. In this role, you will design and architect large scale systems for high-quality software applications that enable machine learning models to be applied to the ever-evolving needs of the business.

How you'll make an impact:

• Help lead the Model Engineering team towards better architectural, system and database designs & practices
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to push the boundary of what is currently possible
• Move quickly on both existing and greenfield projects, while always keeping our end users in mind
• Help us build our engineering team and make Upstart a genuinely awesome place to work
• Work at the intersection of engineering and machine learning to support the core powerhouse of the business

What we're looking for:

• 10+ years of backend software engineering experience 
• Application of software engineering solutions towards building mature and scalable ML systems that unlock the productivity of multiple ML teams or projects 
• Vision for an end to end  ML platform that is automated, repeatable, reliable, and scalable. Ability to guide and influence technical decisions for the team to achieve that goal 
• Ability to lead and resolve company-wide technical discussions spanning  teams of Research Scientists, Data Engineers and DevOps Engineers
• Proven technical decision making skills in build-vs-buy situations and ability to prioritize the highest ROI architectural investments
• Deep understanding of the unique challenges and requirements of building a platform for Machine Learning users
• Solid understanding of database design, data pipelines and ETL, and distributed systems at scale
• Knowledge of containers, continuous integration, CI/CD pipelines and Kubernetes
• Experience with some or many of the following: Python (Flask/Django), Ruby on Rails, Scikit-learn, interactive notebooks (Jupyter/Zeppelin), Databricks, Apache Spark, Kafka and AWS
• Passion for clean code and architecture and initiative to “level-up” the engineering team with better practices & design
• Excellent quantitative reasoning, collaboration and influencing skills
• Dedication to mentoring and implementing best practices for the team

What you’ll love: 

• Competitive Compensation (base + bonus & equity)
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Personal Development and Technology & Ergonomic Budgets 
• Life insurance and disability benefits 
• Clubs and Activities  (Game Nights, Fitstarters, Superwomen, Book Club, Investing Club, Money Discussions, Photography Club and Basketball teams) 
• Generous vacation policy
• 401(k) and Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• Catered lunches + snacks & drinks

The minimum base pay for this position in Colorado is $177,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Base pay may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. This information is provided in accordance with the Colorado Equal Pay Act. It is specific to Colorado and may not be applicable to other locations.