Loan Operations Associate Jobs in Ridgewood, NJ (NOW HIRING)

Job Description

Ares is looking for a highly motivated Senior Associate to join its Investment Operations team and play a critical role in supporting the Firm's growing private debt platform.

This is an opportunity to work at the center of the private credit investment lifecycle - partnering with investment professionals, Portfolio Management, Trading, Legal, Compliance, Fund Accounting, Performance, and Technology to ensure complex private debt investments are accurately captured, operationally ready, and supported by high-quality data from day one.

The role is ideal for someone who enjoys combining credit expertise, analytical problem-solving, legal document interpretation, and technology. You will become a key point of connectivity between executed deal documentation and the systems, data, and workflows that support Ares' investment platform.

Beyond day-to-day execution, you will have the opportunity to help shape how private debt investments are onboarded, governed, and maintained - improving processes, strengthening controls, and partnering with technology teams to reduce manual work and scale the platform.

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Review and interpret complex investment documentation, including credit agreements, note purchase agreements, prospectuses, amendments, borrowing base certificates, funding notices, and related legal documents to identify the economic, legal, and operational terms required for investment setup and ongoing maintenance.
• Lead the setup and onboarding of new private debt investments, including loans, structured credit assets, commercial and residential mortgage loans, private placements, and other credit instruments across internal systems and downstream books and records platforms.
• Capture and maintain critical deal and security-level data, including issuer, borrower, guarantor, facility type, spread, base rate, floor, maturity, payment frequency, day count, amortization, original issue discount, fees, call protection, PIK features, and covenant-related attributes.
• Partner with Compliance on legal entity and obligor structures, including the review of structure charts and maintenance of relevant legal entity information.
• Collaborate with investment strategies and business teams to identify and maintain additional business, reporting, and regulatory data requirements, including strategy-specific user-defined fields.
• Leverage platforms such as DealCloud, AlphaStream, and IVP SecMaster to onboard investments, maintain deal and security-level information, and support the integrity of the investment record throughout the full asset lifecycle.
• Coordinate across Investment, Portfolio Management, Trading, Legal, Compliance, Operations, Fund Accounting, Performance, and external counterparties to resolve discrepancies between executed documentation, internal approvals, and system setup requirements.
• Partner closely with Portfolio Managers, Traders, and investment professionals to ensure new transactions are established accurately and on time ahead of funding, settlement, accounting, and portfolio reporting deadlines.
• Perform quality control reviews of newly onboarded assets and subsequent document-driven changes to ensure completeness, consistency, accuracy, and auditability across systems and downstream consumers.
• Develop and maintain operating procedures, data standards, and control checklists covering document review, security setup, reference data, and ongoing private debt maintenance.
• Work with Technology and Data teams to enhance onboarding workflows, reduce manual touchpoints, improve automation, and strengthen integrations between document review processes and investment platforms.
• Support cross-system reconciliation and remediation efforts by identifying data exceptions, researching root causes, and driving timely resolution of inaccurate or incomplete deal and security information.
• Participate in project management, process improvement, and data governance initiatives designed to strengthen the scalability and control environment of the private debt platform.
• Produce management reporting and operational metrics focused on onboarding timeliness, setup quality, data exceptions, control effectiveness, and operational risk.

• Help train and develop junior team members and offshore resources on credit documentation, security setup standards, data quality expectations, and private debt control processes.
• Serve as a subject matter resource for private debt onboarding and security master processes, helping identify opportunities to improve workflows, strengthen controls, and enhance data quality across the broader investment platform.

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or another business-related discipline.

• Minimum of 5-7 years of relevant experience in investment operations, middle office, security master, onboarding, or asset data management within a credit-focused investment manager, bank, or alternative asset management platform.
• Direct experience supporting private debt, bank loans, privately originated credit, or note investments.
• Demonstrated ability to read and operationalize legal documentation, including credit agreements, note purchase amendments, amendments, and funding notices.
• Hands-on experience with DealCloud, AlphaStream, or comparable private markets / credit operations platforms.
• Strong PowerPoint Skills for polished presentation and project/status reporting
• Strong understanding of private debt instrument structures, lifecycle events, and data attributes required for accounting, valuation, performance, and compliance workflows.
• Experience coordinating across front office, legal, operations, accounting, and technology stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.
• Prior experience at an alternative asset manager is strongly preferred.

• Strong knowledge of private credit products, including term loans, revolvers, delayed draw facilities, unitranche structures, and privately placed notes.
• Excellent attention to detail and the ability to extract key terms from lengthy legal documents and translate them into accurate operational data points.
• Sound judgment in identifying ambiguities in documentation and escalating issues appropriately for resolution.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple live transactions, competing deadlines, and ongoing portfolio maintenance tasks.
• Proven communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with investment professionals, legal counsel, fund accounting, compliance, and technology teams.
• Advanced Excel skills; experience with data analysis, reconciliations, and process documentation.
• A hands-on, solutions-oriented mindset with the ability to improve workflows and strengthen controls in a growing private debt platform.
• High degree of accountability, professionalism, and comfort operating in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Reporting Relationships

Compensation

$130,000 - $150,000

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.