Surety Underwriter - Bond Specialist

Obsidian; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Part time

Job summary

Obsidian is seeking experienced surety professionals to design and analyze bond scenarios, evaluate credit risk, and provide expert feedback to improve AI model behavior. The role involves assessing contractor financial statements, capacity, and indemnity requirements.

The team collaborates with AI research to calibrate responses and ensure realism in bond- and credit-related outputs. Role is suitable for experienced underwriters and analysts willing to work in a contract-focused environment.

Qualifications

• 2+ years in surety underwriting or related fields.
• Ability to read contractor financial statements and WIP schedules.
• Experience with at least one bond category (contract, commercial, court, etc.)

Responsibilities

• Design bonding scenarios across bid, performance, payment bonds and more.
• Prepare credit analyses and bond approvals/declinations.
• Write high-quality, expert-level responses.
• Grade AI responses for credit judgment and bond accuracy.
• Identify misread financials and improper obligee requirements.
• Provide feedback to research team and participate in calibration.

Skills

Surety underwriting

Bond production

Surety claims

Contract-surety analysis

Financial statement reading

Capacity analysis

Indemnity knowledge

Attention to detail

Written communication

Education

AFSB

CPCU

ARM

CPA

Job description

About the Role

Mercor is partnering with a leading AI lab to train frontier models on high-quality insurance reasoning data. We're hiring Surety Underwriters & Bond Specialists to design realistic bonding, credit-analysis and bond-claim scenarios, evaluate model outputs against established market standards, and help shape how the next generation of AI reasons about contractor capacity, obligee requirements and default resolution.

We welcome contract and commercial surety underwriters, bond producers, surety claims professionals, and surety credit analysts from carriers, agencies, reinsurers and bond departments. Surety is a credit-driven discipline distinct from hazard underwriting, and this role reflects that.

What You'll Do

• Design realistic scenarios involving bid, performance and payment bonds, single and aggregate capacity, work-in-progress analysis, indemnity and collateral, commercial and court bonds, and bond-default resolution
• Create work products such as capacity recommendations, credit analyses, bond approvals and declinations, obligee form reviews, indemnity requirements and claim-resolution strategies
• Write "golden" reference responses at experienced surety-professional quality
• Grade AI-generated responses against structured rubrics for credit judgment, capacity reasoning, contract and bond-form accuracy, and default-resolution realism
• Identify misread financial statements, overstated capacity, confusion between surety and insurance obligations, mishandled obligee requirements, and unrealistic default or recovery strategies
• Provide written feedback the research team uses to improve model behavior
• Participate in onboarding office hours and calibration sessions

You're a Good Fit If You

• Have 2+ years of professional experience in surety underwriting, bond production, surety claims, or contract-surety credit analysis
• Have worked with at least one bond category, such as contract surety, commercial surety, court and fiduciary bonds, license and permit bonds, or subdivision bonds
• Can read contractor financial statements and work-in-progress schedules and translate them into capacity and credit conclusions
• Understand the three-party surety relationship and how indemnity, collateral and subrogation differ from insurance loss payment
• Demonstrate excellent written reasoning, commercial and credit judgment, and high attention to detail
• Can distinguish surety credit decisions from property-casualty risk underwriting and ordinary claim adjudication

Bonus Qualifications

• AFSB, CPCU, ARM, CPA, or comparable designation
• Both underwriting and surety-claims experience
• Experience with AIA and other standard bond forms, or with public-works statutory bond requirements
• Contractor default resolution: takeover, tender, financing or completion-agreement experience
• SBA bond guarantee, funds control, or small and emerging contractor program experience

Role Highlights

• Minimum 20 hours per week (ideally 40+)
• Role starts immediately, applications reviewed on a rolling basis