Software Engineer, Distribution Platform

About the role

You will own the design and delivery of scalable marketing platforms that power Upstart's digital outreach and user acquisition initiatives. You will partner with cross-functional teams to translate business goals into robust technical solutions that serve content across multiple marketing channels. Your work will directly influence how Upstart engages with millions of users through targeted and intelligent distribution systems. You will be responsible for making architectural decisions that enhance reliability, performance, and maintainability of critical marketing services. You will bring creativity and rigorous engineering practices to solve problems that impact the reach and effectiveness of our campaigns. You will help build tools that enable data-driven marketing and optimize user engagement at scale. Your contributions will support the mission of radically reducing the cost and complexity of borrowing by improving how we connect with our audience.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Collaborate with product managers, designers, machine learning engineers, analytics, and marketing managers to design and deliver high-quality products for marketing channels.
• Architect and build systems that serve marketing content efficiently and reliably to a large-scale user base across digital platforms.
• Lead the design of scalable APIs and microservices that power content delivery, targeting, and personalization for marketing campaigns.
• Implement solutions that integrate with third-party services and internal systems to enable seamless data flow for marketing operations.
• Optimize database queries and data access patterns to improve performance for large datasets used in audience segmentation and reporting.
• Develop and maintain backend services using Ruby, Java, Kotlin, or Python to support high-throughput marketing applications.
• Apply engineering best practices to improve testability, observability, and maintainability of marketing platform components.
• Partner with analytics teams to ensure accurate measurement, logging, and monitoring of marketing activities and user interactions.
• Evaluate and adopt frontend technologies such as React and TypeScript to enhance user-facing marketing experiences where applicable.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to technical decision-making within the distributed Development Platform team.
• Ensure that systems comply with security, privacy, and operational standards required for handling user data in regulated environments.
• Support on-call responsibilities to maintain high availability and rapid response to production incidents affecting marketing services.
• Explore and prototype new technologies that can provide a competitive advantage in digital outreach and engagement.
• Translate business requirements into technical specifications that guide execution across engineering and product teams.

Requirements

• Hold a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field, or possess equivalent practical experience.
• Bring a minimum of three years of professional experience in software engineering or a related role.
• Demonstrate strong proficiency in at least one of the following programming languages: Ruby, Java, Kotlin, Python, or JavaScript.
• Show experience building scalable APIs and microservices in cloud-based environments such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.
• Exhibit the ability to lead small to medium-sized projects over multiple months with involvement from multiple engineers.
• Communicate effectively in writing and speaking, with the capability to collaborate successfully in a distributed, remote-first team environment.
• Understand software development fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, and system design principles.
• Are comfortable working with version control systems, continuous integration, and automated testing practices.

Nice to have

• Have experience integrating software systems with third-party services or platforms.
• Have worked with SQL, data warehouses, or other database technologies for analytics and reporting.
• Possess professional experience with digital advertising platforms such as Google Ads or Meta Ads.
• Have hands-on experience with Ruby on Rails or Kotlin in production systems.
• Have familiarity with frontend frameworks like React, TypeScript, or modern user interface technologies.
• Understand marketing technology tools and growth engineering concepts within a digital ecosystem.

Practical notes

This role is based in the United States and offers remote flexibility, allowing you to work from most locations within the country. The position is full-time, and hours are aligned with standard business expectations. Applicants from all U.S. locations are encouraged to apply, and remote collaboration across multiple cities is an expected part of the workflow. No specific travel requirements are defined at this time, and the role does not require relocation. Visas sponsorship may be considered for eligible candidates. The posting will remain open until filled, so early application is recommended to ensure full consideration.