Software Engineer, Verifications Platform

About the role

This role focuses on developing the core backend systems that automate and manage verification processes for lending. You will contribute to building scalable, reliable services that handle financial data, fraud detection, and decision-making for Upstart's lending products.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Create and maintain backend services that drive automated verification processes, financial data connections, and loan approval decisions.
• Construct distributed systems, APIs, and event-driven architectures to enhance the efficiency and reusability of verification tools across various lending products.
• Develop platform features that simplify financial data connections, manage their lifecycles, and reduce operational burdens for internal engineering teams.
• Collaborate with Product, Machine Learning, Risk, and Fraud teams to integrate data, decision logic, and risk models into production systems, ensuring accuracy and auditability.
• Enhance system dependability through thorough testing, monitoring, observability, and operational best practices for critical business services.
• Contribute to the advancement of the verification platform by refining architecture, engineering standards, and shared infrastructure to speed up product development.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience, plus at least 3 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Minimum of 3 years of experience building backend applications using Kotlin, Java, or another object-oriented programming language.
• Proven experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems, including service-to-service APIs and event-driven patterns.
• Experience developing and maintaining scalable backend services that process critical business or financial data in live production environments.
• Experience contributing to decision engines that incorporate machine learning models for signal evaluation.
• Demonstrated ability to write production-ready code supported by automated testing, monitoring, and observability practices.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with financial services, lending, fraud prevention, identity verification, or other risk-sensitive systems.
• Experience integrating with third-party financial data providers or APIs, such as Plaid.
• Experience building rule engines, workflow orchestration systems, or automated decisioning platforms.
• Understanding of how machine learning models are integrated, monitored, and evaluated in production.
• Experience developing reusable platform services or shared infrastructure that supports multiple engineering teams.

Skills & tools

• Kotlin
• Java
• Object-oriented programming
• Distributed systems
• APIs
• Event-driven architectures
• Machine learning integration
• Testing
• Monitoring
• Observability

Practical notes

• Salary Range: $142,000 - $196,600 USD
• Compensation varies by geographic location.
• Includes target bonuses, equity compensation, and benefits.
• Regular in-person collaboration sessions are expected (2-4 consecutive days, 1-2 times per quarter).
• Upstart sponsors visas for this role.