Senior DevOps Engineer L4 at Upstart - AI Fintech in Columbus

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 3,000 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers.

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. We're intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. 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, 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 Cloud Platform team sits within the Reliability organization and is responsible for building and operating the shared cloud infrastructure that powers all product and machine learning workloads. The team owns core platform components across Kubernetes (EKS), AWS infrastructure, service mesh, identity, and developer tooling, enabling reliability, scalability, and security across the business.

As a DevOps Engineer (L4) at Upstart, you will help evolve this platform to support increasing scale and complexity. You'll partner closely with SRE, Delivery, InfoSec, and Product/ML teams to improve reliability, developer experience, and cost efficiency across a platform used by nearly every engineering team.

How You'll Make an Impact

• Design and operate a fleet of Kubernetes (EKS) clusters across production, staging, and ephemeral environments, ensuring reliability and high availability
• Evolve AWS infrastructure and network architecture (VPCs, subnets, IAM, account structure) to support scalable, multi-team workloads
• Build and maintain infrastructure-as-code and GitOps workflows using tools such as Terraform, CDK, and ArgoCD
• Improve platform reliability and performance by defining and driving SLOs, analyzing incidents, and implementing systemic fixes
• Participate in and help improve the on-call rotation, leading incident response and post-incident reviews to drive systemic platform improvements
• Partner with SRE, Delivery, InfoSec, and product/ML teams to land high-impact infrastructure changes and platform standards
• Drive improvements in developer experience by simplifying platform usage, reducing toil, and enabling faster product and ML development
• Contribute to cost efficiency initiatives by optimizing resource utilization across Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience) and 3+ years of professional experience
• 3+ years of experience operating Kubernetes in production environments, including cluster networking, storage, and RBAC
• Proficiency with AWS infrastructure, including VPC design, networking, and IAM
• Proven expertise in implementing infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform or AWS CDK
• Experience implementing GitOps workflows using tools such as ArgoCD or similar
• Ability to influence technical decisions across teams and drive adoption of platform standards

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of service mesh technologies such as Istio or Envoy
• Experience designing or operating multi-cluster Kubernetes architectures
• Experience with cloud networking at scale, including ingress/egress or edge platforms (e.g., Cloudflare)
• Knowledge of cloud security, identity, and compliance frameworks (e.g., IAM, SOC 2, CIS benchmarks)

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

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 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.

Compensation

At Upstart, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. Your actual base pay will depend on your geographic location — with our "digital first" philosophy, Upstart uses compensation regions that vary depending on location. Individual pay is also determined by job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

In addition, Upstart provides employees with target bonuses, equity compensation, and generous benefits packages (including medical, dental, vision, and 401k).

• United States | Remote — Anticipated Base Salary Range: $142,000–$196,600 USD
• Canada | Remote — Anticipated Base Salary Range: $136,000–$165,000 CAD

What You'll Love

At Upstart, our benefits for full-time employees are designed to support your health, financial well-being, family, and personal growth. Here's what you can expect:

• Competitive compensation, including base pay, bonus opportunities, and annual equity grants that vest quarterly
• Retirement benefits including a 401(k) or Group Retirement Savings Plan with a company match of $2 for every $1 contributed, up to $15,000 annually
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with discounted stock purchase options for eligible employees (US only)
• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, vision, and wellness resources; supplemental health coverage for Canada
• Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart for eligible plans (US only)
• Income protection benefits, including life insurance and disability coverage
• Paid time off, sick leave, and company holidays, in line with local requirements
• Paid family and parental leave to support caregiving and major life moments
• Family-centered benefits to support fertility, parenthood, and caregiving needs
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offering mental health support and life-centered resources
• Financial wellness resources, including access to financial planning tools and a financial concierge service (US only)
• Annual wellness allowance to support physical and emotional well-being and personal development
• Annual productivity allowance to invest in relevant tools and resources to do your best work
• Connection and community through team events, all-company updates, and employee resource groups (ERGs)
• Onsite perks including catered lunches and fully stocked micro-kitchens when working from offices in the Bay Area, Austin, Columbus, and New York City

For roles based in Canada, please note that we are not currently able to hire in Quebec.

Upstart is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. Just as we are dedicated to improving access to affordable credit for all, we are committed to inclusive and fair hiring practices.

If you require reasonable accommodation in completing an application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please email [email protected]

https://www.upstart.com/candidate_privacy_policy