Remote Underwriting Manager Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

• Full-Time
• Location: Remote (US) - core Pacific Time working hours required; approximately 20% travel to our San Ramon office and to customers.
• Compensation: The base salary range for this full-time position is $160,000 - $200,000 + 15% target performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation.

ARIVE (arive.com) is the industry's first integrated LOS, POS, and Pricing Engine with a connected Lender Marketplace, purpose-built for independent mortgage originators. We are a dynamic high-growth company revolutionizing digital mortgage originations, and our platform seamlessly connects independent loan originators, top-tier wholesale lenders, borrowers, referral partners, credit providers, and property and settlement service providers - creating a faster, more transparent, and more affordable path to homeownership.

ARIVE AI brings agents into the core of the platform - built in, not bolted on. Its underwriting agent runs guideline-grounded rules across live loan files to produce Pre-Underwrite outputs: findings, checklists, and conditions that surface eligibility issues and documentation gaps. The agents also try to autonomously address any issues before a file ever reaches the lender underwriting. The result is cleaner files into every lender's process - and it only works if the rules behind it are right.

The Director of Product - AI Underwriting owns the correctness of ARIVE AI's Underwriting Rules and Pre-Underwrite outputs. This is an underwriting-expert-first role for someone who also understands the impact of AI: you bring deep, hands-on underwriting analysis and working AI fluency - reviewing prompts, shaping evaluation criteria, and reasoning about agent behavior - while our engineering team owns the low-level LLM development and evaluation infrastructure. You will verify that every rule ARIVE AI generates and applies is faithful to the agency guides and to each lender's specific guidelines and overlays, working directly with lenders and agencies to review rules - and you will stand behind what the Pre-Underwrite says.This is a remote position with core Pacific Time working hours, working closely with the ARIVE platform engineering team and reporting to executive leadership and to the Head of Product once that role is hired. You will start as a hands-on individual contributor, with the potential to grow a team as the domain scales.

• Rules Review & Verification: Review, test, and verify ARIVE AI Underwriting Rules against the agency guides and against each investor's guidelines and overlays. Approve rules before release and re-verify them as guidelines change. Verify the agents' autonomous actions with the same rigor - every automated issue resolution must be correct and guideline-compliant.
• Lender & Agency Validation: Work directly with lender credit and underwriting teams, and with the agencies as applicable, to confirm rule accuracy and correctness - run validation reviews, leverage findings, reconcile interpretation differences, and maintain lender-specific rule sets as the source of truth.
• Pre-Underwrite Output Ownership: Be responsible for Pre-Underwrite outputs end to end: audit findings, checklists, conditions, and the agents' autonomous issue resolutions for accuracy on real files; triage errors and drive root-cause fixes; own the accuracy bar for what "correct" means.
• Underwriting Depth: Direct the rules' treatment of income, asset, credit, and collateral underwriting across agency and Non-QM programs - the full expertise map below.
• AI Development Partnership: Work daily with platform engineers - who own low-level LLM development and evaluation infrastructure - to review and refine agent prompts, build evaluation datasets from the guides, design human-in-the-loop review and escalation, and validate agent output on messy, real-world files.
• Guideline Change Management: Monitor agency and lender guideline updates and drive timely, verified rule changes so Pre-Underwrite outputs never drift from current policy.
• Roadmap & Launch Partnership: Shape the AI Underwriting roadmap and partner closely with Product, Engineering, Sales, Onboarding, Support, Compliance, and Executive Leadership to successfully launch new capabilities, integrations, and strategic initiativesMetrics & Quality: Define and report the domain's quality KPIs - rule accuracy, false findings, condition quality, and lender acceptance of Pre-Underwrite outputs.

This role demands full-file depth across all four underwriting disciplines:

• Income Underwriting: Wage-earner and self-employed income analysis (Forms 1084/1088, tax return and K-1 analysis), rental income, and Non-QM income methods - bank statement, P&L, 1099, DSCR, and asset-utilization/depletion programs.
• Asset Underwriting: Asset sourcing and seasoning, large deposits, gift funds, business funds, earnest money, and reserve requirements across programs.
• Credit Underwriting: Tradeline and derogatory-event analysis (waiting periods, extenuating circumstances), liabilities and DTI treatment, inquiries and letters of explanation, and DU/LPA findings interpretation and conditioning.
• Collateral Underwriting: Appraisal review, property eligibility (including condos and unique property types), comparable and adjustment analysis, subject-property condition, and appraisal-risk flags (e.g., CU).

Breadth matters as much as depth: ARIVE AI's rules must hold up across agency and Non-QM programs - and Non-QM is exactly where lender-specific guidelines diverge most.

• Must have: deep, demonstrated experience in detailed underwriting analysis - full-file review spanning the income, asset, credit, and collateral disciplines above - at senior scope.
• 10+ years in mortgage underwriting and/or agency credit policy. A Bachelors or Masters degree is a strong plus.
• Mastery of agency guidelines - Fannie Mae Selling Guide, Freddie Mac Seller/Servicer Guide, and FHA Handbook 4000.1 - with VA and USDA experience valued; Non-QM underwriting experience strongly preferred.
• Wholesale/TPO or correspondent lending background strongly preferred, including collaboration with lender underwriters, account executives, setup teams, etc.
• Working knowledge of AI/LLM platforms and tools, and a genuine passion for technology. Should be able to review prompts, reason about agent behavior, and contribute to evaluations - plus familiarity with modern underwriting technology (AUS, income/asset verification tools, AI rules/analysis engines).
• Willingness to travel approximately 20% - to our San Ramon office and to lender and agency partners. Bay Area-local candidates able to work regularly from the office are a strong plus.

• Compensation: The base salary range for this full-time position is $160,000 - $200,000 + 15% target performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation. Our salary ranges are determined by location, level, and role; individual compensation will be determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) with employer match.
• Flexible PTO.
• Work closely with the ARIVE platform engineering team, owning a flagship domain of the platform.