The Team

Upstart’s Infrastructure Security team is focused on securing the cloud, compute, platform, and deployment layers that run our products. We believe security should enable fast, safe delivery through strong engineering fundamentals, automation, and secure-by-default patterns. Our team partners closely with platform, infrastructure, and product engineering to reduce risk in areas such as cloud IAM, Kubernetes and container security, network controls, secrets management, infrastructure-as-code, and production vulnerability management.

As a Security Engineer II at Upstart, you will help design, build, and improve security controls that protect our production infrastructure and developer platforms. You will partner with engineers across infrastructure, platform, and product teams to identify risks, review designs, automate preventative controls, and improve the security of the systems our products run on. This role is well suited for an engineer who can independently lead medium-sized projects, troubleshoot moderately complex security problems, and deliver durable improvements that make Upstart’s infrastructure more secure by default.

How you’ll make an impact

• Design and implement security controls for cloud, platform, and deployment systems, with a focus on secure defaults and durable risk reduction.
• Partner with platform, SRE, and infrastructure teams to review architecture and infrastructure changes, identify security risks, and drive practical remediation plans.
• Build and improve automation for infrastructure security, including controls for cloud IAM, Kubernetes and container environments, secrets handling, and infrastructure-as-code workflows.
• Identify and remediate systemic weaknesses such as misconfigurations, exposed services, weak trust boundaries, and insecure defaults in production environments.
• Support infrastructure vulnerability management by helping prioritize findings, validate fixes, and improve how issues are detected and prevented over time.
• Help assess and improve security controls for AI-assisted developer workflows and GenAI-enabled systems, including agentic tooling, coding assistants, and internal AI integrations that interact with production or sensitive environments.
• Respond to production security issues, investigate root causes using logs, dashboards, and system context, and contribute follow-up improvements that strengthen the platform.
• Contribute to team effectiveness by documenting patterns, participating in design and code reviews, and helping raise the security quality bar across engineering.

Minimum Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree and 3+ years of experience in security engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related software engineering role.
• Experience securing or operating cloud-native infrastructure in AWS or a similar cloud environment.
• Experience with one or more of the following domains: cloud IAM, Kubernetes/container security, network security, secrets management, or infrastructure vulnerability management.
• Experience writing code or automation in Python, Go, Java, or a similar programming language.
• Experience reviewing system designs, infrastructure changes, or architecture proposals and driving actionable security outcomes.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD tooling such as Terraform, Helm, GitHub Actions, or similar technologies.
• Experience investigating and resolving moderately complex production or security issues using logs, metrics, and debugging tools.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools responsibly, with an understanding of security considerations such as sensitive data exposure, unsafe automation, access boundaries, or insecure use of generated code and infrastructure changes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building preventative guardrails or automated controls that are adopted by multiple engineering teams.
• Familiarity with production access control patterns for engineers and service identities.
• Experience with Kubernetes, service-to-service trust models, workload identity, or runtime security controls.
• Experience improving cloud posture management, hardening baselines, or drift detection programs.
• Familiarity with security considerations for AI-assisted engineering workflows, including code generation or code review tooling.
• Experience partnering with Risk, Compliance, or Audit teams in a regulated environment.
• Security certifications such as AWS Security Specialty, GCP Professional Cloud Security Engineer, CISSP, or equivalent practical expertise.

Position location This role is available in the following locations: Remote

Time zone requirements The team operates on all continental US time zones.

Travel requirements As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S or Canada (outside of Quebec) but are expected to spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites and in-person meetings. The onsite cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

The Team

Upstart’s Information Security team is dedicated to advancing security practices that enhance the safety of our products, customers, and partners. We believe security should empower innovation, move at the speed of the business, and be built in from the ground up. Our mission is to protect Upstart’s products and enterprise while enabling teams to move quickly and safely through strong collaboration, automation, and thoughtful security design.

As a Senior Security Engineer at Upstart, you will be responsible for identifying risk, building controls to mitigate risk, and develop solutions to help Upstarters avoid incurring unnecessary risk. You'll use your skills to lead cross functional initiatives, assess business plans and applications, and build software that solves security problems proactively.

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote, San Mateo, Columbus, Austin 

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones.

Travel Requirements - This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions. As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Architect and build software solutions (Workflows, Services, and internal tools) that accelerate security
• Elevate security maturity across the organization by mentoring engineers, influencing leadership through clear risk metrics, and fostering a culture where security enables innovation
• Continuously improve systems by learning from real-world signals such as false positives, operational feedback, and evolving threats
• Serve as a senior technical authority during high-severity incidents, driving root cause analysis and durable architectural improvements

What we’re looking for: 

• Minimum requirements:
• Proven track record of owning security initiatives end-to-end, including post-launch validation, monitoring, and iterative improvement
• Experience performing security reviews (e.g., design reviews, threat modeling, architecture assessments) and driving actionable outcomes
• Demonstrated ability to identify, investigate, and remediate complex security issues across one or more domains
• Experience developing code and building services to enhance unique security needs 
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI-assisted tools (e.g., code generation, analysis, or investigation tools) to improve productivity while maintaining security and quality standards
• Preferred qualifications:
• Experience working with diverse data domains (e.g., analytics, reporting, business operations, or people data)
• Experience assessing security risks in AI/ML systems (e.g., prompt injection, model misuse, data poisoning, access control around models)
• Experience building applications hosted in a K8s environment
• Experience with security orchestration tools for automating processes that are adopted beyond a single team
• Experience partnering with Legal, Risk, Compliance, and Audit teams to operationalize security controls in regulated environments
  
  
  

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-MidSenior 

The Team

Upstart’s Information Security team is dedicated to advancing security practices that enhance the safety of our products, customers, and partners. We believe security should empower innovation, move at the speed of the business, and be built in from the ground up. Our mission is to protect Upstart’s products and enterprise while enabling teams to move quickly and safely through strong collaboration, automation, and thoughtful security design.

As a Principal Security Engineer focused on Data Security, you will play a critical role in defining, building, and leading Upstart’s data security program. This is a highly impactful role that combines deep hands-on technical execution with program leadership. You will design and implement scalable data security capabilities, influence cross-functional partners across the company, and help establish long-term strategy and accountability for how data is protected at Upstart.

This role is ideal for a senior security practitioner who enjoys operating at the intersection of coding, architecture, and cross-functional leadership, and who has experience taking complex security programs from concept to reality.

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote (US), San Mateo, Columbus, Austin

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones.

Travel Requirements - As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Lead the design and execution of Upstart’s data security program, from early foundations through mature, scalable systems
• Architect and build software solutions (APIs, services, and internal tools) that enable effective data protection and governance
• Partner closely with Engineering, Analytics, Product, Legal, Risk, HR, and other stakeholders to secure sensitive data across diverse domains
• Establish clear goals, success metrics, and accountability for data security initiatives
• Drive adoption of least-privilege access models and modern data protection patterns across the organization
• Mentor engineers and security practitioners, fostering strong technical standards and a culture of ownership
• Continuously improve systems by learning from real-world signals such as false positives, operational feedback, and evolving threats

What we’re looking for: 

• Minimum requirements:
  
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics, or a related field (or its equivalent) + 8 years of experience
  • Extensive experience across enterprise and operational security domains, with deep focus on Data Security and Identity & Access Management
  • Experience owning or leading a Data Security, DLP (Data Loss Prevention), or DSPM (Data Security Posture Management) initiatives
  • Proven experience leading security programs that span multiple teams and functions
  • Strong software engineering background, with the ability to design and build production-quality systems (e.g., APIs, services, or internal web applications)
  • Experience launching new security capabilities or programs from 0 to 1 in complex environments
  • Deep understanding of least-privilege principles and practical experience applying them at scale
  • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence senior technical and non-technical stakeholders
  • Ability to navigate ambiguity, make sound tradeoffs, and independently drive meaningful change
• Preferred qualifications:
  • Familiarity with modern data protection tooling such as endpoint DLP, data classification, or posture management platforms
  • Experience working with diverse data domains (e.g., analytics, reporting, business operations, or people data)
  • Contributions to the security community through talks, publications, open-source projects, or other industry involvement
  • Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOX
  • Interest in long-term growth as a senior individual contributor, with openness to future people leadership paths

The Team:

Upstart’s Application Security team is passionate in bringing progressive approaches in securing our products. We believe that security should empower innovation, move at the speed of business, and have safety by design as core principles. Our team’s mission is to ensure the safety of our core product platforms, enterprise, and manage threats to Upstart. We approach our efforts through automation, strong collaboration with our partner teams, and maintaining a positive experience for Upstarters.. 

As the Principal Application Security Engineer at Upstart, you will be expected to lead cross-functional and cross-organizational discussions and outcomes around threat modeling, application and infrastructure security. You will be expected to deeply understand the business verticals and product needs and influence them to build highly secure systems and platforms. You will have a direct hand in shaping the strategic security posture and roadmap for Upstart and should be a  well-rounded technologist and security practitioner.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Define and drive Upstart’s application security strategy, aligning secure-by-design principles with business priorities, regulatory expectations, and our AI-driven product roadmap.
• Lead cross-functional security architecture reviews for critical initiatives, influencing engineering, platform, data, and infrastructure decisions to reduce systemic risk early in the SDLC.
• Establish and scale a robust threat modeling program for high-risk systems, including customer-facing applications, lending workflows, and ML/AI pipelines, translating findings into durable engineering standards and controls.
• Design and standardize application security guardrails across the SDLC, including secure coding practices, automated testing (SAST/DAST/SCA), CI/CD protections, and secrets management.
• Partner with Infrastructure and Cloud teams to strengthen the security posture of cloud-native and distributed systems, ensuring defense-in-depth across application and infrastructure layers.
• Identify and reduce internal and external attack surface through automation and platform-level solutions, prioritizing long-term risk reduction over point-in-time remediation.
• Serve as a senior technical authority during high-severity incidents, driving root cause analysis and durable architectural improvements.
• Elevate security maturity across the organization by mentoring engineers, influencing leadership through clear risk metrics, and fostering a culture where security enables innovation.

What we’re looking for:

Minimum requirements:

• 9+ years of experience in security engineering, with at least 5 years focused on application security
• Demonstrated experience leading security architecture reviews and threat modeling for complex, customer-facing production systems
• Experience in Java, Python or Ruby development.
• Experience designing and implementing application security controls across the SDLC, including secure coding standards, API Security, SAST/DAST/SCA, CI/CD security, and secrets management
• Demonstrable track record as an influential leader, delivering security solutions with multiple stakeholder groups
• Experience managing multiple and simultaneous, significant information security initiatives and programs
• Experience developing code and building services to enhance unique security operational needs 
• Experience with advanced threat modeling techniques and risk assessment

Preferred qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience spanning across multiple security and engineering domains in a cloud-native and/or distributed systems environment
• Experience building or scaling an application security program, including defining metrics, maturity models, and risk-based prioritization frameworks
• Familiarity with security considerations in modern frontend frameworks, APIs (REST/GraphQL), and microservices architectures.
• Experience partnering with Legal, Risk, Compliance, and Audit teams to operationalize security controls in regulated environments
• Security certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, AWS Security Specialty, or equivalent practical expertise

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: San Mateo, Columbus, Austin, Remote 

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones.

Travel Requirements - This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions. These occur 3-4 days per Quarter at one of our office locations or some other off-site location determined by your team/manager. If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-MidSenior