Senior Research Scientist

San Mateo, CA, United States

About Upstart

Upstart is a leading AI lending marketplace partnering with banks and credit unions to expand access to affordable credit. By leveraging Upstart's AI marketplace, Upstart-powered banks and credit unions can have higher approval rates and lower loss rates across races, ages, and genders, while simultaneously delivering the exceptional digital-first lending experience their customers demand. More than two-thirds of Upstart loans are approved instantly and are fully automated.

Upstart is a digital-first company, which means that most Upstarters live and work anywhere in the United States. However, we also have offices in San Mateo, California; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.

Most Upstarters join us because they connect with our mission of enabling access to effortless credit based on true risk. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Upstart, we’d love to hear from you!

Machine Learning Team:

Upstart’s Machine Learning team has a direct impact on our company's success. The team consists of full-stack applied science generalists as well as specialists in research, data science, statistical modeling and machine learning. The fundamental goal of the Machine Learning team is to explore new models and new data sets that can improve the accuracy of our models. With this goal comes near-limitless challenges to tackle, and that is one of the reasons why Upstart is such a unique opportunity.

Servicing Team:

World class servicing is a win-win. Lenders and investors will participate more in the case of good outcomes; borrowers who pay back have better credit scores and more access to credit; and most importantly, knowing that loans will be serviced in a world class way, Upstart can approve more borrowers, growing our business and our impact.

Servicing is the core of Upstart's relationship to borrowers, where they will spend 99% of their lives with us. They are also most likely to interact with our team when they’re frazzled, distressed, or just plain broke. In this team, you'll balance accountability with compassion, and above all create frictionless, superb experiences. We’re asking people to pay us, after all – the least we can do is to make it easy!

Ultimately, this team is responsible for not only predicting borrower outcomes, but also shaping them. No companies have solved this problem well, and it has practically infinite upside. The opportunity is breathtaking, and our ML edge could make all the difference.

You will be the second Research Scientist to join our Servicing Machine Learning team. Servicing at Upstart has enormous opportunities, because of lack of historical investments. But also because of lack of historical investment, Servicing needs an experienced hire that is not only independent technically, but can also think through business issues, work with cross-functional teams, and set up Servicing for success in the long run.

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

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

Travel Requirements - This team has regular on-site collaboration sessions. Research scientists can anticipate working in either HQ 3 days/week 4 times/year. Since this is a leadership position, a few additional travel dates may be possible for onsite collaborations with other teams. If you need to travel to make these meetups, Upstart will cover all travel related expenses.

How you’ll make an impact:

Improve Upstart’s loan performance using experimentation and machine learning to make optimal loan servicing decisions.

Establish a framework for running and evaluating servicing experiments, for example, establishing metrics for evaluating the success of servicing interventions.

Work with product, engineering, and operations to ensure our decisioning system and data storage is transparent and provides everything needed for analysis of models and experiments.

Build machine learning models to predict risk, for example of probability of rolling from delinquency to charge off.

Minimum qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in quantitative area of study

Understanding of machine learning models and statistical methods

Coding proficiency, preferably in Python

Excellent quantitative critical thinking skills

Excellent communication skills

Preferred qualifications:

4+ years of experience in machine learning or adjacent field.

Prior experience leading machine learning or data science initiatives from end-to-end, working with cross functional stakeholders, and 0-to-1 projects.

Advanced degree in quantitative area of study such as statistics, economics, operations research, finance, mathematics, or related field.

Consumer lending knowledge and/or experience within an ML-centric technology company is a plus.

What you'll love:

Competitive compensation (base + bonus & equity)

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart

401(k) with 100% company match up to $4,500 and immediate vesting and after-tax savings

Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)

Life and disability insurance

Generous holiday, vacation, sick and safety leave

Supportive parental, family care, and military leave programs

Annual wellness, technology & ergonomic reimbursement programs

Social activities including team events and onsites, all-company updates, employee resource groups (ERGs), and other interest groups such as book clubs, fitness, investing, and volunteering

Catered lunches + snacks & drinks when working in offices

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At Upstart, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package. The anticipated base salary for this position is expected to be within the below range. 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 $149,800 — $207,000 USD Upstart is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. We are dedicated to ensuring that underrepresented classes receive better access to affordable credit, and are just as committed to embracing diversity and inclusion in our hiring practices. We celebrate all cultures, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, and know that we can only become better together.

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

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