Mortgage Underwriting Subject Matter Expert
Location: Bangalore, India (Offshore)
Employment Type: Full-Time
About SAI Group
SAI Group is a private investment firm that has committed $1 billion to incubate and scale revolutionary AI-powered enterprise software application companies. Our portfolio, a testament to our success, comprises rapidly growing AI companies that collectively cater to over 2,000+ major global customers, approaching $600 million in annual revenue, and employing a global workforce of over 4,000 individuals.
SAI Group invests in new ventures based on breakthrough AI-based products that have the potential to disrupt existing enterprise software markets. SAI Group’s latest investment, JazzX, is a pioneering technology company which is building a platform that will not only shape the future of enterprise AI applications but also offer practical solutions to real-world challenges.
Role Overview
As JazzX’s Bangalore-based Mortgage Underwriting SME, you will be a domain authority for U.S. residential mortgage underwriting embedded directly with our product and engineering teams. You will own how underwriting analysis — income calculation, credit and capacity assessment, collateral review, AUS findings interpretation, and condition management — is defined, explained, validated, and operationalized into the JazzX Mortgage Application.
This is a hands-on position. You will underwrite representative loan files, document decision rationale in a compliance-ready format, translate guidelines and compensating-factor logic into machine-actionable rules, and lead day-to-day validation of AI-assisted underwriting outputs — working side by side with product managers and engineers in Bangalore.
JazzX is building AI products that automate and assist U.S. residential mortgage origination and fulfillment. Our product and engineering teams bring deep AI and software expertise, but they do not come from the mortgage industry. This role exists to close that gap: you will embed with the product team as a hands-on domain expert, bringing real operational mortgage experience into product design and product build at a very detailed level — from workflow maps and edge cases down to field-level definitions, decision rules, and acceptance criteria.
What You’ll Do
Hands-On Underwriting & Decision Documentation
- Underwrite a representative set of U.S. residential mortgage loans (purchase, rate-term refinance, cash-out, conventional, FHA, VA, including manual underwriting scenarios and AUS overrides) and document outcomes in a compliance-ready format: approve/suspend/decline with detailed rationale, conditions, and exception handling.
- Perform and document detailed income calculations (wage earner, self-employed, rental, commission, variable income), asset review, credit analysis, and collateral/appraisal review in a way engineers can implement as exacting rules.
- Capture decision rationale tied to agency guidelines (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac), government programs (FHA, VA, USDA), compensating factors, AUS findings (DU/LPA), and investor requirements.
Rule Design & Operationalization
- Decompose underwriting decisions into discrete, machine-actionable steps suitable for automation — inputs, guideline references, calculations, thresholds, and outputs.
- Define fallback logic, explainability requirements, audit trails, and acceptance criteria for automated underwriting features.
- Contribute to and maintain underwriting playbooks and decisioning frameworks that unify how detection, necessity filtering, risk assessment, and structured output come together in the product.
Product Design Partnership
- Embed with the Bangalore product and engineering teams as the voice of the underwriter persona; review product specs, prompts, AI reasoning outputs, and UX flows against real-world underwriting practice at a very detailed level.
- Write edge cases, counterexamples, and test scenarios that stress-test AI underwriting behavior on the loan characteristics that most often cause errors.
Model Validation & QA
- Design and run validation programs that blind-test AI/automation outputs against manual underwriter decisions; quantify discrepancies, root causes, and risk.
- Define monitoring metrics and guardrails (automation coverage, decision accuracy, condition quality and clearance rates) and prioritize remediation of high-risk failures.
Condition Lifecycle & Knowledge Transfer
- Specify how underwriting conditions are generated, worded, assigned, prioritized, and cleared; map condition ownership to personas and LOS fields.
- Train product and engineering teams on underwriting fundamentals; serve as a primary domain reviewer for underwriting product specs, test plans, and release readiness.
What We’re Looking For
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of hands-on U.S. residential mortgage underwriting experience, including senior underwriter, SME, QC/audit, or training roles within a mortgage BPO/KPO, captive, or U.S. lender offshore operation.
- Deep, current knowledge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines and FHA/VA program requirements; strong command of AUS findings interpretation (DU/LPA), compensating factors, and manual underwriting principles.
- Demonstrated expertise in complex income analysis (self-employed/tax-return analysis, rental income, variable income), asset and credit review, and collateral/appraisal review.
- Practical experience with major LOS platforms (Encompass or equivalent) and the ability to map LOS fields and data schemas to underwriting rules and conditions.
- Strong analytical skills and experience with quality review, audit, or validation work comparing decisions against guidelines or against other underwriters’ decisions.
- Excellent written and verbal English communication skills; proven ability to write playbooks, document rationale in an audit-ready way, and teach cross-functional teams across time zones.
Skills & Competencies
- Ability to translate complex underwriting policy into actionable rules, decision trees, and traceable decision records.
- Comfort working in cross-functional product and engineering settings; able to specify field mappings, calculations, and acceptance criteria.
- Strong attention to detail and a validation mindset — able to quantify risk, diagnose root causes, and recommend prioritized fixes.
- Collaborative and proactive; energized by building product capability rather than working a production queue.
Preferred
- Experience at large BPO/KPO providers, global capability centers, or technology vendors performing underwriting or underwriting support for U.S. lenders.
- Prior involvement in underwriting automation, AI/ML validation, post-close QC programs, or training and certification of underwriters.
- Certifications such as FHA DE or VA SAR/LAPP exposure (directly or via supervised programs), or other mortgage lending and risk credentials.
