Associate Director - Structured Finance Ratings, Esoteric Assets

About the Role Associate Director - Structured Finance Ratings, Esoteric Assets leads analytical and governance activities within the Esoteric ABS team, delivering credit opinions on non-traditional collateral. You will coordinate cross-portfolio analytics, coach junior staff, and integrate AI-enabled tools with strong governance to support issuers and investors with market-relevant insights. What You'll Do

• Act as senior reference point coaching on credit fundamentals, modelling discipline, data quality, and standard work, including how to use AI with governance.
• Coordinate work across credits; anticipate capacity/quality risks; influence outcomes through planning and constructive challenge in ambiguous situations.
• Embed continuous improvement into routines by improving playbooks/SOPs/prompt libraries and driving adoption.
• Partner with stakeholders to identify and shape high-impact use cases, supporting testing/adoption/rollout with governance, controls, and change management.
• Foster a critical thinking mindset challenging assumptions and the status quo to generate insights that shape market views and strategic decisions.
• Model enterprise behaviors: Discovery, Integrity, and Partnership including human-centric leadership alongside AI-enabled change.
• Deliver end-to-end analytical execution across a defined portfolio, setting a consistently high bar for quality, timeliness, and clarity to sustain customer trust.
• Lead surveillance and analytical updates, connecting performance, market developments, and issuer peers to forward-looking risk themes.
• Own the quality of key outputs, ensuring consistency and clarity of reasoning.
• Use approved GenAI/LLMs to accelerate research/comparisons/drafting.
• Operate effectively alongside AI agents in recurring workflows.
• Support the execution of AI-driven projects.
• Validate inputs, reconcile metrics, document assumptions/model changes.
• Synthesize data, analysis, and research into executive-ready, market-facing narratives that convey S&P’s analytical expertise—leveraging broad market knowledge and detailed analysis to deliver trusted advice that influences decisions.
• Build collaborative stakeholder trust through empathetic communication, differentiate S&P’s market viewpoint, and drive engagement with market participants.
• Contribute to strategic initiatives and also thought leadership by researching, drafting, and refining content with senior team input.
• Risk Management and Operating: Ensure adherence to methodology/confidentiality/data governance requirements; escalate emerging risks early.
• Embed responsible AI use in workflow process.
• Drive controlled automation/agentic workflows to remove low-leverage work, defining requirements/controls and partnering with Data/Engineering to scale safely while setting expectations for ongoing monitoring and human oversight. What We're Looking For
• Experience or strong foundational knowledge in credit fundamentals, modelling, data quality, and governance in a ratings environment or related field.
• Ability to coordinate across credits, manage capacity/quality risks, and influence outcomes in ambiguous situations.
• Familiarity with GenAI/LLMs and AI-enabled workflows with governance.
• Ability to synthesize data into executive-ready narratives and engage with market participants.
• Commitment to responsible AI use, data governance, and proactive risk management.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and thought-leadership capabilities. Compensation & Benefits
• Base salary range: $110,000 USD to $193,000 USD. Final base salary determined by location, experience, skill set, training, licenses, and certifications.
• Eligible for an annual incentive plan.
• Benefits details available for review; additional information provided by employer.