Mortgage Credit & Underwriting Lead

Own the independent credit view on OWN's mortgages, from initial screen through credit memo, approval recommendation, closing conditions, and ongoing monitoring. Final approval sits with the designated credit authority.

Near term, underwrite long-duration loans secured by eligible digital assets. In parallel, build the mortgage-credit standard required for future property-backed programs.

The core of this role is deep, hands-on analysis of borrowers, the collateral securing each program, and loan structure. Frameworks and automation should capture proven underwriting judgment; they are not a substitute for it.

Crypto experience is useful, but direct mortgage or real-estate-secured credit underwriting experience is mandatory.

• Underwrite each early mortgage file end to end, identify missing evidence, and form an independent view of repayment capacity, collateral protection, structure, and recoverability.
• Analyze borrower income and cash flow, existing debt, liquidity, credit history, source of funds, use of proceeds, affordability, and relevant DTI or DSCR measures.
• For future real-estate-backed files, analyze valuation quality, title and liens, priority, insurance, jurisdiction, marketability, concentration, downside value, and recovery path.
• For current digital-asset-backed files, analyze ownership, custody, liquidity, volatility, concentration, price source, haircuts, liquidation mechanics, and stress behavior over a long-duration loan.
• Test the proposed structure and downside: LTV, advance rate, term, fixed rate, amortization, reserves, covenants, triggers, cures, defaults, recoveries, and borrower or collateral sensitivities.
• Write, present, and defend clear credit memos with a recommendation to approve, decline, or approve with conditions; document assumptions, exceptions, mitigants, open items, and approval owners.
• Work with legal, valuation, KYC/AML, servicing, Deal Flow, and Funding to close diligence gaps without compromising credit independence.
• Establish portfolio limits and monitoring for exposure, LTV, borrower and collateral concentration, arrears, covenant breaches, watchlists, and recoveries.
• After the manual process is proven, work with product and engineering to codify data requirements, calculations, flags, memo generation, approval workflow, and portfolio reporting.

• 5+ years in mortgage underwriting or real-estate-secured credit, with direct responsibility for analyzing and recommending real exposures from source documents.
• Strong borrower cash-flow and affordability analysis, property and collateral analysis, and loan-structure judgment.
• Working knowledge of appraisal review, title and lien position, insurance, documentation, defaults and cures, enforcement, and recoveries.
• Excellent credit writing: concise facts, explicit assumptions, reasoned downside cases, and an unambiguous recommendation.
• Experience presenting to or operating under a credit committee, delegated authority, or independent risk function.
• Willingness to decline weak files and challenge commercial pressure with evidence.

• Development finance, project underwriting, bridge lending, or developer exposure analysis.
• Digital assets, crypto-backed lending, DeFi, stablecoins, custody, tokenized RWAs, or smart-contract collateral experience.
• Prior work on underwriting engines, loan origination systems, risk dashboards, credit workflow automation, or portfolio monitoring.
• Czech/CEE mortgage, property, bank credit, or private credit experience.

• Can walk through a difficult approval and a correct decline, including the evidence that changed the decision.
• Has personally rebuilt borrower cash flow, challenged an appraisal, identified hidden leverage, or changed structure to protect downside.
• Produces credit memos that a new reviewer can understand and audit without oral context.
• Separates policy, model output, and judgment, and knows which missing evidence makes a file un-underwritable.

• Define the minimum evidence and analytical standard for borrowers, structure, legal and servicing review, current digital asset collateral, and future property collateral.
• Underwrite the first live files and produce decision-ready credit memos with clear conditions and exceptions.
• Establish base-case and downside models, valuation review, approval authority, exception governance, and closing-condition checklists.
• Create lender-ready explanations of the credit approach and the risks, mitigants, and monitoring for each early transaction.

• Establish a consistent underwriting standard that produces fast, defensible decisions without weakening diligence.
• Build a portfolio view across exposure, LTV, repayment performance, collateral concentration, exceptions, watchlists, and emerging risk.
• Turn recurring analysis into reusable policy, models, memos, data requirements, and approval workflows.
• Give Funding a credible institutional risk package and Deal Flow precise feedback on which channels produce financeable files.

• Generic fintech risk manager with no hands-on mortgage or secured-credit underwriting.
• Data scientist or automation product manager who treats model output as the credit decision.
• Credit operations profile limited to document collection and checklist completion.
• Commercial originator or broker without independent risk accountability.
• Senior policy adviser who will not underwrite the first transactions personally.

• Walk through the most difficult mortgage or secured-credit file you personally underwrote. What drove the final decision?
• How do you rebuild repayment capacity when borrower income, entities, or existing obligations are complex?
• What makes you challenge an appraisal, and how do you derive a defensible downside value?
• How would your analysis and monitoring differ between property-backed and digital-asset-backed long-duration loans?
• Which conditions, covenants, or reserves protect a borderline but potentially acceptable credit, and when should the answer still be no?

50,000-80,000 EUR base + performance tied to portfolio quality and risk outcomes.

Equity/options may be included for candidates who materially help build OWN's underwriting and credit risk infrastructure.