Principal Special Loans

Overview

The Principal, Special Loans is a senior individual contributor role embedded within the product organization. This is not a line operations or people management role. Instead, this position is designed for a deeply experienced servicing subject matter expert who understands, in detail, how complex and non-standard loan products operate, and can translate that expertise into scalable product capabilities.

This role is responsible for supporting the end-to-end definition, product translation, and operational readiness of special loan servicing workflows, including modifications, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), and non-standard payment structures. The Principal ensures that all calculations, schedules, and borrower impacts are accurate, compliant, and consistently applied across the servicing lifecycle.

Reporting to the Director of Servicing Product, this role partners closely with Product and Engineering to ensure that platform functionality accurately reflects real-world servicing complexity, regulatory requirements, and investor expectations. Within the broader servicing product organization, this role serves as the primary domain subject matter expert and is responsible for translating special loan servicing expertise into clear requirements, workflows, controls, and testing input for Product and Engineering. The Principal plays a critical role in validating that business rules, financial logic, workflows, and edge cases are intentionally designed and not implicitly assumed.

Responsibilities

Product and Operational Alignment

• Ensure product design reflects real servicing behavior for complex and non-standard loan products.
• Translate operational processes and product nuances into clear product requirements, business rules, controls, and system logic.
• Ensure special loan workflows operate with appropriate controls, traceability, and auditability.
  
  

End-to-End Workflow Definition and Validation

• Define and validate end-to-end (E2E) workflows across special loan servicing scenarios.
• Document workflows across happy paths and edge cases, ensuring intentional handling of exceptions.
• Validate completeness and consistency of calculation logic, schedules, and dependencies across upstream and downstream systems.
  
  

Product Translation & Requirements Definition

• Translate domain expertise into product requirements, business rules, and system logic, and advise Product and Engineering on the operational implications of design and prioritization decisions.
• Ensure requirements are sufficiently detailed and unambiguous to support scalable, repeatable system behavior.
• Evaluate trade-offs across compliance, scalability, operational complexity, and speed to market.
• Surface risks early, particularly related to calculation accuracy, borrower impact, and regulatory compliance.
  
  

Engineering Partnership and Delivery Support

• Partner closely with engineering teams to refine requirements, clarify financial logic, and support implementation.
• Partner with Product and Engineering during backlog refinement and implementation planning to clarify requirements, validate business rules, and support functional decision-making.
  
  

Testing, Validation, & Automation Contribution

• Contribute to the development of known-answer and scenario-based test cases for special loans calculations and workflows.
• Validate system behavior and outputs against expected amortization, payment, and rate outcomes.
• Support UAT execution, defect triage, regression testing, and release readiness validation.
• Partner with QA and engineering to design and implement an automated test suite informed by special loan domain logic.
  
  

Functional Ownership: Special Loans

• Establish control frameworks for special loan processing, including validation, calculation accuracy, approvals, and audit evidence standards.
• Define requirements for loan modification booking, including capitalization, re-amortization, and borrower impact.
• Specify amortization logic across standard and non-standard scenarios, including recast events and schedule recalculations.
• Define requirements for non-standard loan products, including interest-only, balloon, step-rate, and other custom structures.
• Specify index update processes, including sourcing, timing, and validation of rate indices.
• Define rate change calculation logic, including margin application, rounding rules, and frequency.
• Specify lookback periods and timing logic for rate determination.
• Define ARM servicing requirements, including payment changes, borrower notices, and audit expectations.
• Define payment recalculation logic across rate changes, modifications, and recast events.
• Define requirements for error correction, borrower impact remediation, and audit traceability related to calculation or payment discrepancies.
• Specify complex payment structures, including bi-weekly payments, daily simple interest (DSI), and non-standard amortization schedules.
• Define monitoring and validation routines for calculation accuracy, payment correctness, and borrower impact.
  
  

Flexible Domain Contribution

• Support adjacent servicing domains as needed based on program priorities and evolving platform needs.
• Partner across domains to ensure alignment of workflows, data, and operational dependencies throughout the servicing lifecycle.
• Contribute to resolution of cross-domain issues, gaps, and edge cases to ensure cohesive end-to-end platform behavior.
• Apply financial and servicing expertise to broader platform design decisions beyond primary area of ownership.
  
  

Qualifications

• 8 years in mortgage servicing with deep expertise in special loans, ARM products, or complex loan servicing scenarios (AVP preferred; VP considered).
• Strong understanding of amortization, rate calculations, and non-standard loan structures.
• Experience with loan modifications, recasting, and ARM servicing requirements.
• Familiarity with regulatory and investor requirements related to ARM disclosures and loan modifications.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex financial logic and special loan servicing processes into clear business requirements, controls, workflows, and test scenarios for Product, Engineering, and QA teams.
• Proven functional leadership across cross-functional teams, including Technology, Operations, Product, Finance, and external partners.
  
  

MSR Portfolio Services is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All aspects of consideration for employment and employment with the Company are governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law.