[Hiring] Director of Product, Machine Learning & Decisioning Platforms @Upstart

Role Description

Upstart is looking for a Director of Product, Machine Learning & Decisioning Platforms to help us achieve our mission of enabling effortless credit based on true risk. This role will lead the product strategy and team responsible for the platforms that power Upstart’s credit decisioning and machine learning platform capabilities. This is a highly technical, platform-focused product leadership role at the core of Upstart’s business. You will manage and develop a team of experienced product managers, set strategy across multiple interconnected product areas, and partner closely with engineering and machine learning leaders to evolve the systems underlying pricing, underwriting, model deployment, and ML innovation.

The ideal candidate is a strong product leader and coach who can:

• Bring structure to complex, ambiguous problems.
• Connect technical decisions to business and customer outcomes.
• Create alignment across teams.

While you will remain close to the product, this role is primarily focused on setting direction, developing talent, and enabling your team to deliver high-impact results.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of product managers, setting clear priorities and raising the quality of product management across the organization.
• Define the product strategy and roadmap for the platforms powering Upstart’s credit decisioning and machine learning capabilities.
• Partner with engineering and machine learning leaders to improve model development, versioning, deployment, forecasting, experimentation, and monitoring.
• Evolve underwriting and decisioning systems to better connect customer information, model outputs, and business outcomes.
• Identify opportunities to apply machine learning across the business, validate them through focused MVPs, and build the strongest opportunities into scalable products.
• Create scalable processes for evaluating, onboarding, and integrating data vendors and other ML capabilities.
• Balance near-term execution with long-term platform investment, making thoughtful trade-offs across impact, risk, technical complexity, and speed.
• Build alignment across teams and ensure machine learning is incorporated into product strategy from the start.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of product management experience, including experience leading technical or platform products.
• Experience managing and developing product managers, ideally across multiple interconnected teams.
• Strong technical fluency and experience partnering with engineering, machine learning, and data science teams.
• Demonstrated ability to set strategy, navigate ambiguity, and deliver results in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong analytical, organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to connect technical and product decisions to business outcomes, particularly in credit, lending, or financial services.
• A track record of building strong teams and raising the quality of product management practices.

Requirements

• Experience as a data scientist, machine learning engineer, or other machine learning individual contributor.
• Experience with model lifecycle management, decisioning systems, experimentation, optimization, or real-time inference platforms.
• Experience building or scaling online financial products, particularly in consumer lending or credit.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation, including base pay, bonus opportunities, and annual equity grants that vest quarterly.
• Retirement benefits to help you plan for the future, including a 401(k) or Group Retirement Savings Plan with a company match of $2 for every $1 contributed, up to $15,000 annually (USD in the US, CAD in Canada).
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with discounted stock purchase options for eligible employees (US only).
• Comprehensive health coverage designed to support you and your family, including medical, dental, vision, and wellness resources for US and 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 for added financial security.
• 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 (duration varies by country).
• 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 your physical and emotional well-being and personal development, based on what matters most to you.
• Annual productivity allowance to invest in relevant tools and resources you need to do your best work, no matter where you work from.
• 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 one of our offices in the Bay Area, Austin, Columbus, and New York City (opening Summer 2026!).