Senior Engineering Manager, Platform Delivery

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 1,800 signals, powering smarter, fairer decisions for millions of customers. But the numbers only hint at the impact. Every idea, every voice, and every contribution moves us closer to a world where credit never stands between people and their financial progress. 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. Digital-first doesn’t mean distant. We’re intentional about in-person connection through team onsites, planning sessions, and moments that spark creativity and trust. And 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 (opening Summer 2026), 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:  The Delivery team enables engineers at Upstart to build, test, and ship software safely through a reliable, secure, and auditable delivery system. The team owns the build and release pipeline, service creation experience, and the engineering portal, and leads cross-functional efforts to eliminate friction across the software delivery lifecycle. Our goal is to make shipping software fast and predictable. We are working toward a model where engineers can go from idea to production in a single day through self-service workflows that minimize manual coordination and operational overhead. This includes evolving CI/CD infrastructure, standardizing service creation, embedding observability and reliability by default, and providing a unified platform for service lifecycle management. The team operates at the center of engineering productivity and partners closely with platform, SRE, and product engineering teams to deliver scalable, high-leverage solutions. As a Senior Engineering Manager of the Delivery team you will lead a team responsible for improving the reliability, speed, and usability of Upstart’s software delivery platform. Your focus is execution. You will drive high-impact improvements to developer workflows, reduce friction in the path to production, and ensure systems are scalable, observable, and easy to operate. You will partner closely with platform, SRE, and product engineering teams to advance a self-service delivery model where engineers can build, deploy, and operate services with minimal manual coordination. This role is suited for a hands-on leader who brings strong technical judgment, drives consistent execution, and builds high-performing teams. You will balance near-term delivery with incremental platform improvements that make software delivery more predictable and reliable across the organization. How you’ll make an impact You will lead a team delivering critical improvements to engineering velocity and system reliability. Team Leadership and Execution Manage and develop a team focused on CI/CD, service lifecycle tooling, and developer experience Drive execution against clear priorities with consistent, high-quality delivery Establish strong engineering practices across reliability, testing, and observability Build a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and pragmatic decision-making Delivery Platform Evolution Improve build and deployment workflows to increase speed and reduce friction Drive adoption of standardized deployment patterns across services Simplify and modernize delivery infrastructure while maintaining stability Ensure systems are scalable, secure, and resilient Developer Experience and Self-Service Enable self-service workflows for service creation, deployment, and platform integrations Reduce manual coordination, support tickets, and reliance on tribal knowledge Partner with stakeholders to identify pain points and prioritize high-leverage improvements Contribute to the engineering portal as the central interface for service lifecycle operations Reliability and Operational Excellence Embed observability and operational standards into delivery workflows Ensure systems support safe, auditable, and predictable releases Reduce toil and improve system health through targeted improvements Minimum Qualifications  5+ years of engineering management experience 7+ years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, or platform engineering Strong technical background in CI/CD systems, cloud infrastructure such as AWS, and distributed systems Ability to define clear team charters and execute with speed and alignment Track record of hiring, mentoring, and retaining high-performing engineers Execution-focused leadership with a track record of predictable delivery Technical depth to guide architectural decisions and trade-offs Systems thinking across reliability, scalability, and developer experience Strong cross-functional collaboration Preferred Qualifications Experience with managing large-scale CI/CD systems such as Jenkins or GitHub Actions Experience building or improving self-service developer platforms Familiarity with microservices architectures and service lifecycle management Experience supporting platform or architectural transitions Strong product mindset when building internal tools