Senior Data Platform Engineer

About Upstart At Upstart, we’re united by a mission that matters: to radically reduce the cost and complexity of borrowing for all Americans. Every day, we bring creativity, experimentation, and advanced AI to reshape access to credit, helping millions move forward financially with clarity and confidence. As the leading AI lending marketplace, we partner with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit through technology that’s both radically intelligent and deeply human. Our platform runs over one million predictions per borrower using more than 1,800 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers. But the numbers only hint at the impact. Every idea, every voice, and every contribution moves us closer to a world where credit never stands between people and their financial progress. We’re proudly digital-first, giving most Upstarters the flexibility to do their best work from wherever they thrive, alongside teammates across 80+ cities in the US and Canada. Digital-first doesn’t mean distant. We’re intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. And whether you choose to work primarily from home or collaborate in-person from one of our offices in Columbus, Austin, the Bay Area, or New York City (opening Summer 2026), you’ll have the support to work in the way that works best for you. If you’re energized by tackling meaningful problems, excited to innovate with purpose, and motivated by work that truly matters, we’d love to hear from you. The Team: Upstart’s Data Curation team builds and operates the data platform that powers how teams across Upstart discover, trust, and use data. The team provides scalable infrastructure, metadata systems, and self-serve tooling that enable analysts, machine learning engineers, and product teams to work with Lakehouse data efficiently and confidently. As a Senior Data Platform Engineer on the Data Platform team, you will design and build the systems that make data accessible, reliable, and usable at scale. Your work will directly improve how teams understand, query, and leverage data across Upstart, driving productivity and enabling better decision-making. How you’ll make an impact Design and build scalable data platform infrastructure, including distributed systems that power data discovery, metadata management, and data access Develop and maintain tooling that enables teams to self-serve data transformations, testing, and deployment workflows within the Lakehouse Improve data reliability and observability by building systems for monitoring, alerting, and data quality validation Partner with machine learning engineers, analysts, and product teams to understand data needs and drive adoption of platform capabilities Contribute to platform evolution in areas such as metadata services, natural language data access, and AI-enabled data interactions Lead and influence technical design decisions, balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform scalability and maintainability Minimum Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience) plus 4+ years of experience Experience building and operating distributed data systems or data platform infrastructure in a cloud environment (e.g., AWS) Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Python, Java, Scala, Javascript or Kotlin Experience working with data processing frameworks or infrastructure (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Airflow, or similar technologies) Experience designing, deploying, and maintaining production-grade data systems, including monitoring and reliability practices Preferred Qualifications Experience building or supporting data platforms, developer tooling, or internal infrastructure products Knowledge of metadata management, data cataloging, or data governance systems Experience working with Lakehouse archi ... (truncated, view full listing at source)