Senior Associate, Business Lending

Overview

This role focuses on owning credit policy for business lending products, starting with a business credit card—from adjudication through the full account lifecycle. You’ll design and implement the underwriting framework, build strategies to manage how credit limits evolve over time, and partner with collections to manage risk once accounts are on book.

The work involves building underwriting and risk infrastructure for Canadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), using cash flow, seasonality, industry, and business bureau data.

Responsibilities

• Own credit policy for business lending products, starting with a business credit card, covering:
  • Entity-level underwriting criteria
  • Principal/guarantor assessment
  • Joint-liability
  • Initial limit-setting and approval decisioning
• Design and implement an underwriting framework that determines qualification criteria and credit limits.
• Build and own line management strategies, including:
  • Credit limit increases and decreases
  • Pricing and authorization rules
  • Active exposure management driven by cash-flow and balance monitoring
• Partner closely with collections to design risk-managed treatment strategies specific to business accounts.
• Build lifecycle monitoring to detect emerging risk early.
• Evaluate portfolio and policy performance using:
  • Vintage analysis
  • Cohort tracking
  • Champion/challenger testing to validate and refine underwriting decisions
• Propose policy enhancements that improve marginal profitability while keeping risk within appetite, using rigorous root-cause analysis.
• Define the data and underwriting infrastructure needed for SMB lending, including sourcing, validating, and weighting business financial data alongside traditional bureau signals.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Engineering, Product, Data Science, Fraud, and Client Experience to translate policy into shippable adjudication and monitoring systems.
• Influence partner roadmaps and implement policy that drives measurable impact.

Requirements

• Direct experience underwriting or setting credit policy for small and medium-sized businesses (must-have).
  • Card experience is not required; experience in instalment loans or lines of credit is welcome.
• Hands-on SQL experience to self-serve data and build monitoring and analytics.
• Ability to operate in a ship-and-iterate environment while shaping policy as the product evolves.
• Strong analytical judgment, including the ability to weigh incomplete or noisy information and still reach well-grounded decisions.
• Communicate clear recommendations to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Intellectual curiosity and ownership mindset.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in small business lending.
• Knowledge of Canadian consumer credit bureau data (Equifax, TransUnion).
• Working knowledge of how business credit risk differs from consumer credit risk, including:
  • Entity vs. personal guarantor assessment
  • Business bureau data
  • Cash-flow-based underwriting
  • Industry/sector risk
  • Revenue seasonality
• Experience across the credit lifecycle: adjudication policy, line management, pricing, and collections strategy.
• Experience with statistical/quantitative analysis, including one or more of:
  • Experimental design
  • Champion/challenger (or A/B) testing
  • Model accuracy validation
  • Constrained optimization
  • Decision trees
  • Discounted cash flows
  • Financial modeling
• Python experience.
• Familiarity with GitHub.
• Bonus: Airflow, AWS Redshift, and dbt.

Compensation & Benefits

• Top-tier health benefits and life insurance.
• Long-term group savings with employer match.
• 20 vacation days, 4 wellness days, and unlimited sick and mental health days per year.
• 90 days away: work outside Canada for up to 90 days per year.
• Employee resource groups.

Note: Unlimited paid sick days, Wellness Days, and the 90 day away program do not apply to certain roles.

Location

Hybrid team with over 1,500 employees across North America.