Associate Director - Structured Finance Ratings, Esoteric Assets

S&P Global • New York, NY

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Associate Director - Structured Finance Ratings, Esoteric Assets role is part of the Global Ratings Services team, which comprises a diverse group of 1,400 analysts across key financial hubs worldwide. This team is dedicated to delivering high-quality insights and exceptional client service across all industry sectors. The Esoteric ABS team assigns credit ratings to securities backed by non-traditional collateral such as corporate securitizations, data centers, triple-net leases, transportation assets, and De-Fi. Analysts achieve this by analyzing underlying asset performance, structural protections, cash-flow mechanics, and downside stress scenarios. The opinions produced help issuers and investors compare complex instruments, offering market-relevant perspectives on performance trends, issuance conditions, and the role of AI in origination and securitization. At S&P Global, the values of Discovery, Integrity, and Partnership guide how employees work, collaborate, and earn trust. AI is embraced as an enabler, guided by rigorous governance and risk management, to enhance the intelligence of people, deep relationships, and trusted insights. By leveraging technology with human expertise, teams navigate complexity and deliver actionable, decision-ready intelligence without compromising quality, accountability, or integrity.

Requirements

• Complete the end-to-end ratings process for new issue and surveillance transactions.
• Perform cash flow analysis, synthesize results, and present findings in a timely manner in committees for various non-traditional assets, including transportation ABS, private equity, triple NNN, data centres, time-share, whole business, and De-Fi transactions.
• Analyze credit, cash flow, and performance characteristics of collateral pools.
• Review third-party model output and reconcile with cash flow results from internal models.
• Review legal and operating documents to ensure consistency with criteria and identify issues with the transaction structure.
• Provide comments to external parties.
• Actively manage relationships with internal and external clients.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge of ratings criteria and cash flow analysis and be able to handle clients’ analytical questions.
• Actively contribute to our training and outreach efforts, including the completion of timely commentaries, podcasts, and webinars.
• Execution maturity across credit portfolio; delivers high quality with limited oversight.
• Strong collaboration/communication; influences through credibility and constructive challenge.
• Proven coaching/mentorship; develops juniors through feedback and quality review and reinforces human accountability in AI-enabled work.
• Continuous improvement mindset with evidence of simplifying processes through standardization, tooling, and automation.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and change, adapting quickly as processes/tools evolve.
• Ability to scale automation/agent workflows by defining problems, supporting testing/UAT, identifying controls, and enabling adoption.
• Strong research/data/credit/financial analysis; translates complexity into decision-useful narratives grounded in evidence and judgement.
• Strong understanding of the financial services environment and ability to connect developments to emerging risk themes.
• Practical AI fluency: experience embedding GenAI/LLMs and agentic workflows to increase productivity/insight as an enabler of human expertise, paired with disciplined validation, governance, and judgement.
• Strong analytical tool capability; willingness to learn data/automation tools to oversee AI-enabled production.
• Effective written and verbal skills for committee-ready documentation/presentation and interactions with issuers, investors and market participants.
• High standards for accuracy, traceability, and governance; consistent adherence to methodology/documentation/confidentiality expectations.
• Sound judgement on responsible AI/automation (validation, bias/hallucination awareness, data protection, attribution, approved boundaries).
• Five to ten years’ of relevant work experience.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent required.
• Employees are required to work from the office a minimum of two days per week.
• Candidates who reach the final stage of the interview process will be asked to attend at least one in-person interview at their nearest S&P Global Ratings office before an offer can be extended.

Nice To Haves

• A master’s degree or professional certification (such as CFA) is highly valued.
• We welcome candidates from traditional finance disciplines as well as diverse academic backgrounds that support innovative and critical thinking.

Responsibilities

• Act as a senior reference point coaching Research Assistants, Rating Analysts, and Senior Analysts on credit fundamentals, modeling discipline, data quality, and standard work, including how to use AI as an enabler with governance.
• Coordinate work across credits, anticipate capacity/quality risks, and 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, and 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 thought leadership by researching, drafting, and refining content with senior team input.
• Ensure adherence to methodology/confidentiality/data governance requirements; escalate emerging risks early.
• Embed responsible AI use in workflow processes.
• 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.
• Complete the end-to-end ratings process for new issue and surveillance transactions.
• Perform cash flow analysis, synthesize results, and present findings in a timely manner in committees for various non-traditional assets, including transportation ABS, private equity, triple NNN, data centers, time-share, whole business, and De-Fi transactions.
• Analyze credit, cash flow, and performance characteristics of collateral pools.
• Review third-party model output and reconcile with cash flow results from internal models.
• Review legal and operating documents to ensure consistency with criteria and identify issues with the transaction structure.
• Provide comments to external parties.
• Actively manage relationships with internal and external clients.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge of ratings criteria and cash flow analysis and be able to handle clients’ analytical questions.
• Actively contribute to training and outreach efforts, including the completion of timely commentaries, podcasts, and webinars.
• Deliver high quality with limited oversight, demonstrating execution maturity across the credit portfolio.
• Exhibit strong collaboration/communication skills; influence through credibility and constructive challenge.
• Provide proven coaching/mentorship; develop juniors through feedback and quality review and reinforce human accountability in AI-enabled work.
• Demonstrate a continuous improvement mindset with evidence of simplifying processes through standardization, tooling, and automation.
• Adapt quickly as processes/tools evolve, comfortable with ambiguity and change.
• Scale automation/agent workflows by defining problems, supporting testing/UAT, identifying controls, and enabling adoption.
• Perform strong research/data/credit/financial analysis; translate complexity into decision-useful narratives grounded in evidence and judgment.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of the financial services environment and ability to connect developments to emerging risk themes.
• Exhibit practical AI fluency: experience embedding GenAI/LLMs and agentic workflows to increase productivity/insight as an enabler of human expertise, paired with disciplined validation, governance, and judgment.
• Possess strong analytical tool capability; willingness to learn data/automation tools to oversee AI-enabled production.
• Utilize effective written and verbal skills for committee-ready documentation/presentation and interactions with issuers, investors, and market participants.
• Maintain high standards for accuracy, traceability, and governance; consistent adherence to methodology/documentation/confidentiality expectations.
• Exercise sound judgment on responsible AI/automation (validation, bias/hallucination awareness, data protection, attribution, approved boundaries).

Benefits

• Health care coverage designed for the mind and body.
• Generous time off helps keep you energized for your time on.
• Access a wealth of resources to grow your career and learn valuable new skills.
• Secure your financial future through competitive pay, retirement planning, a continuing education program with a company-matched student loan contribution, and financial wellness programs.
• Perks for your partners and little ones, too, with some best-in class benefits for families.
• From retail discounts to referral incentive awards—small perks can make a big difference.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level