Private Credit Professionals - AI Residency (Part-time) Frontier AI Research

About Us

Mentis AI works at the intersection of institutional finance expertise and frontier AI systems. Our team combines deep financial services experience (Lazard, Partners Group) with machine learning and applied AI research. Operating across London and San Francisco, we collaborate with leading AI labs to improve how models reason, generalize, and make decisions in high stakes financial contexts.

The Opportunity

AI is rapidly becoming embedded into core private credit workflows - from initial underwriting and credit approval through facility structuring, documentation, and ongoing portfolio monitoring. This residency is designed for direct lending and private credit professionals who want early, practical exposure to how advanced AI systems are built, evaluated, and improved in the context of middle market lending and credit fund operations.

You will:

• Construct expert benchmarks: Build and validate real world credit analyses, underwriting cases, and portfolio monitoring frameworks used to evaluate frontier AI systems.
• Stress test model reasoning: Diagnose weaknesses in AI generated credit analyses, identifying where logic, assumptions, or underwriting intuition fail.
• Design frameworks: Translate how credit professionals evaluate borrowers, structure facilities, and monitor middle market companies through the deal lifecycle into problems that push the limits of AI reasoning.
• Compare human vs. machine judgment: Systematically evaluate divergence between professional credit judgment and AI outputs across direct lending, unitranche, and structured credit contexts.

Why This Experience Is Valuable

• You will be among the first private credit professionals to work directly on how frontier AI models reason about credit underwriting, deal structuring, and portfolio management.
• A distinctive profile for anyone who wants to sit at the intersection of private credit and AI - whether at a credit fund, an AI company, or building something themselves.
• Hands on exposure to how AI is reshaping credit workflows, from underwriting and covenant analysis through loan documentation, portfolio monitoring, and amendment processes.

Who You Are

• 3-8 years of private credit or direct lending experience at a BDC, direct lending platform, or credit fund (e.g. Ares Capital, Golub Capital, HPS Investment Partners, Blue Owl Capital, Apollo, Oaktree)
• Associate, VP, or Director level
• Strong credit underwriting skills: financial modeling, covenant analysis, collateral assessment, and credit memo writing
• Experience structuring first lien, unitranche, second lien, or mezzanine facilities for sponsor backed or non sponsored borrowers
• Familiarity with loan documentation, portfolio monitoring, and amendment/waiver processes
• Genuine intellectual curiosity about the application of AI in private credit and financial services

Residency Structure

• Commitment: 15+ hours/week, flexible scheduling
• Location: Remote globally, or in person if based in London or San Francisco
• Compensation: Paid professional engagement
• Start date: Immediate / Rolling