The Team:

Upstart’s Cash Line and Unsecured Installment teams are building and scaling mobile experiences across two important lending product surfaces. This role will help both teams drive Android migration work, strengthen Upstart’s mobile foundation, and support a newly approved Android app launch plan on an aggressive timeline. The work is highly cross-functional and high-visibility, with direct impact on product strategy, engineering execution, and the experience of future Android borrowers.

As the Principal Software Engineer, Android at Upstart, you will lead critical Android initiatives across both the Cash Line and Unsecured Installment teams while helping shape the long-term mobile architecture across those product areas. You’ll serve as the senior technical owner for native Android work, partner across both teams to deliver against an ambitious roadmap, and continue as a mobile specialist after launch with enough React Native experience to influence frontend direction, delivery, and engineering quality across the broader stack. This is a high-impact individual contributor role with meaningful technical leadership, cross-team influence, and mentorship responsibility.

How you’ll make an impact

• Lead Android migration and development efforts across Cash Line and Unsecured Installment product surfaces, making thoughtful technical decisions that improve product quality, scalability, and speed of execution.

• Help deliver against Upstart’s approved Android launch plan, translating aggressive business goals into pragmatic technical milestones and execution plans.

• Set technical direction for mobile architecture, helping the teams evolve a strong foundation across native Android and React Native surfaces while keeping Android expertise at the core.

• Partner closely with product, design, and engineering stakeholders across both teams to translate roadmap priorities into durable mobile solutions.

• Raise the bar for engineering excellence through technical leadership, design reviews, mentorship, and pragmatic execution in ambiguous, high-visibility problem spaces.

• After launch, continue as a mobile specialist who can support both the Cash Line and Unsecured Installment teams, bringing deep Android expertise alongside enough React Native fluency to contribute across shared mobile surfaces.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including substantial experience building and shipping native Android applications in Kotlin and/or Java.

• Proven track record leading large, cross-team mobile initiatives, platform migrations, or new mobile product launches in production environments.

• Experience shipping consumer-facing mobile products at scale with strong attention to performance, reliability, and user experience.

• Native Android depth in Kotlin and/or Java, plus working experience with React Native and TypeScript to operate effectively across a mixed mobile stack.

• Demonstrated technical leadership as a senior individual contributor, including architecture ownership, mentorship, and influence across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience serving as the mobile or frontend technical lead for a product team or business-critical product surface.

• Breadth across mobile platforms, including familiarity with iOS development, React Native, or cross-platform mobile architecture.

• Background in fintech, lending, or other consumer financial products with complex user journeys and high quality expectations.

• Experience helping teams build conviction around new mobile investments through technical proposals, feasibility work, or proof-of-concept execution.

• Comfort leading through ambiguity in fast-scaling product environments where scope, ownership, and roadmap priorities evolve over time.

• Experience building alignment across engineering, product, design, and leadership partners in high-visibility, cross-functional organizations.

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote, Burlingame, Columbus, Austin, New York

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates across all U.S. time zones.

Travel Requirements - This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions. These occur 3 days per quarter at an Upstart office. If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.