Funding Associate

The Role

The Funding Associate executes daily loan fundings and construction draw releases for an institutionally backed private lender across residential real estate asset classes. This hands-on role manages funding readiness, funding package review, wire preparation and initiation, disbursement tracking, and exception resolution across multiple funding partners and platforms.

The role coordinates with internal teams, institutional banks, warehouse lenders, and third-party custodians to fund transactions accurately and on time while maintaining required approvals and segregation of duties. A core responsibility is using AI, automation, and practical process improvements to reduce manual work and build scalable funding operations.

The Work 

Loan Funding and Partner Coordination

• Manage the daily funding queue and calendar, tracking readiness, submission deadlines, bank cutoffs, approvals, and outstanding conditions.
• Coordinate across Treasury, Sales, Closing, Credit, Accounting, Servicing, and Construction, and with external funding parties, to resolve conditions and meet deadlines.
• Execute direct, table, wet, and dry funding workflows; review and submit complete, accurate funding packages under each lending partner’s requirements.
• Reconcile funding amounts across loan systems, requests, partner submissions, wire instructions, and reporting. Resolve missing information, calculation differences, duplicate requests, and unsupported changes before release.
• Maintain partner checklists, submission records, status updates, and post-funding follow-up. Escalate transactions at risk and support onboarding of new warehouse facilities and platforms.

AI, Automation, and Process Improvement

• Identify repetitive and error-prone work; use AI, spreadsheet tools, workflow automation, and low-code platforms to improve funding intake, document checks, queue management, wire preparation, tracking, and reporting.
• Build standardized templates, checklists, dashboards, and exception workflows. Reduce duplicate entry and improve consistency across loan, accounting, banking, and partner systems.
• Partner with Technology and Data on integration and broader development of a scalable treasury platform.
• Document workflows and measure improvements in processing time, accuracy, visibility, and cutoff performance.
• Preserve required approvals, audit trails, segregation of duties, data security, and human review in all automated or AI-assisted workflows.

Wire Execution and Controls

• Set up and maintain wire templates with banking partners for recurring beneficiaries (warehouse lenders, title and escrow companies, custodians, construction borrowers), including additions, edits, and deactivations.
• Prepare and initiate loan funding and construction draw wires through approved banking platforms and accounting systems, subject to required independent approval and release.
• Validate beneficiaries, instructions, amounts, dates, and supporting documents; confirm instruction changes are independently verified under company procedures.
• Track approvals, releases, Fed references, receipt, rejected or returned wires, and cancellations. Reconcile scheduled versus released funds and coordinate recovery when needed.
• Immediately escalate suspected fraud, duplicate payments, beneficiary discrepancies, unauthorized changes, and unresolved funding exceptions.

Construction Draw Releases

• Manage the daily draw release queue and confirm required internal approvals before disbursement.
• Validate approved amounts against construction budgets, available holdbacks, prior disbursements, remaining commitments, and applicable loan limits.
• Review approvals, inspections, invoices, lien waivers, budget detail, and wire instructions for operational completeness. Escalate missing documents, insufficient holdbacks, or unsupported amounts.
• Track approved draws through release and final resolution, and confirm disbursements are accurately reflected in applicable systems and reporting.

Required Qualifications

• Three or more years of experience in private lending, mortgage banking, construction lending, specialty finance, treasury operations, or funding operations.
• Experience reviewing funding packages, partner submissions, wire instructions, and calculations, and coordinating with institutional banks, warehouse lenders, and custodians.
• Strong spreadsheet skills, including lookup formulas, data validation, exception reporting, and operational tracking; ability to learn new systems and partner workflows quickly.
• Strong organization, clear communication, and independent problem-solving in a high-volume, deadline-driven environment.
• Sound judgment to stop or escalate transactions when information does not reconcile and drive outstanding issues through resolution.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in residential bridge or construction lending and managing multiple warehouse facilities or institutional funding relationships.
• Direct experience executing loan fundings and construction draw releases, including table and direct funding structures.
• Experience with major institutional banks and their commercial banking and wire platforms.
• Familiarity with major accounting systems, loan origination systems, treasury management platforms, and reporting tools.
• Practical experience using AI, data transformation tools, workflow automation, or low-code platforms to improve operational processes while preserving appropriate controls.

The Pay

Pay range is $90,000-$100,000 per year, with a discretionary bonus of 10% per year

The Work Environment

• This role works on-site from Ascent's Encino office, Monday - Thursday (Fridays are work-from-home).