Principal Software Engineer, Identity Platform

About Upstart

Upstart is the leading AI lending marketplace partnering with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit. By leveraging Upstart's AI marketplace, Upstart-powered banks and credit unions can have higher approval rates and lower loss rates across races, ages, and genders, while simultaneously delivering the exceptional digital-first lending experience their customers demand. More than 80% of borrowers are approved instantly, with zero documentation to upload.

Upstart is a digital-first company, which means that most Upstarters live and work anywhere in the United States. However, we also have offices in San Mateo, California; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.

Most Upstarters join us because they connect with our mission of enabling access to effortless credit based on true risk. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Upstart, we’d love to hear from you!

The Team: 

The Identity Platform team is responsible for the creating, securing and managing the borrower and partner identity that is the center piece of all Upstart loan products like Personal Loans, Auto Loans and Home Loans.The Identity platform team is responsible for all Authentication and Authorization Platform and the experiences ( Frontend ) associated with it. We ensure borrowers and partners are able to authenticate securely and seamlessly and their data is protected from unauthorized access.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you are at the helm of driving technical excellence, execution and innovation within the Identity Platform team. You are responsible for setting the technical vision and direction for Identity Platform that works backwards from our product strategy. You will work closely with Product partners from different verticals to help them plan, create and deliver secure product experiences that are frictionless.  You will have the opportunity to design and build large scale systems from the ground up, partner closely with InfoSec and CSO, and work in a highly-collaborative and fast-paced environment. We are looking for a seasoned leader with a passion for Identity and Access Management, Customer Experience, experimentation, and distributed systems. If this sounds exciting, we would love to hear from you. 

 

How you’ll make an impact

• Define the long-term technical direction and roadmap for Identity and Access Management Platform in alignment with Upstart’s business objectives. 
• Lead the design, development and execution of a system that emphasizes security and ease of access.
• Work closely with the Informational Security team to improve and develop standards that ensure that our customer data is secure.
• Guide the architectural evolution of Identity engineering systems with an emphasis on security, scaling innovation across multiple engineering teams. 
• Uncover and drive alignment across complex technical requirements, designs, trade-offs, influencing product direction 
• Proactively evaluate, prototype, and roll out new technologies/frameworks to help cultivate a culture of innovation
• Lead from the front, while mentoring and developing technical leaders

 

Minimum Qualifications 

• 10+ years of experience developing large scale distributed systems in the cloud
• 7+ years of experience leading large cross-team initiatives
• Experience building highly scalable APIs using containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes
• Solid grasp of software development principles and best practices for creating scalable and maintainable systems
• Proficiency in one or more object oriented programming languages like Kotlin, Java, Ruby, C#, C++
• Strong communication skills and ability to explain complex business and technical concepts to all audiences
• Track record of successfully mentoring and developing technical leaders
• Experience working in dynamic fast paced organizations
• Ability to balance the needs of the business with the needs of engineering improvements
• Passion for clean code and architecture and initiative to “level-up” the engineering team with better practices & design
• You are able lead and resolve company-wide technical discussions and are able to collaborate and include input from cross-functional teams (security, devops, data, compliance and product)
• You have a good sense for build-vs-buy and are able to prioritize the highest ROI architectural investments

 

Preferred Qualifications

• High proficiency with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect Specifications
• Experience working in Identity and Security Platform
• Experience with building Kotlin or Java backend services