Director of Processing

Position Overview

As the Director of Processing, you lead the entire processing department and own the strategy that keeps it running and growing. You are responsible for the Processing team, the Junior Processing team, and the training function, and for making all three work together as one engine. You set direction based on company directives, build leaders, and make sure files move quickly and accurately across every product type.

Your job is to manage the managers, remove roadblocks, and design how the department operates so problems get solved at the right level instead of escalating to the top. The work is part strategist, part builder.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership and Strategy

• Own the overall strategy for the processing department and set the direction for how loans are processed across all product types, including agency and portfolio (chattel and land home).

• Manage and develop the Processing Manager, Processing Development Manager, and Operations Training Manager, and hold them accountable for the results of their teams.

• Build a leadership bench. Coach your managers so they can solve problems within their own teams and grow into bigger roles over time.

• Earn and keep the respect of the team. Lead in a way that people want to follow, and build a culture of accountability, service, and ownership.

• Represent processing in origination, underwriting, and closing conversations so your managers can stay focused on running their teams.

• Partner with leadership on the long-term org structure and on what a fulfillment organization needs to look like at scale.

Workflow and Efficiency

• Look at every workflow with fresh eyes. Find bottlenecks, cut steps that do not add value, and standardize how work gets done while maximizing the Jr. Processors where it makes sense.

• Direct the rollout of new systems and processes, including task-based workflow and onboarding of any new service providers or services that affect the processing department.

• Use data to manage the department. Track production, turn times, quality, and capacity, and use what you see to make decisions and rebalance work across teams.

Department Oversight

• Set monthly goals including appraisal orders, submissions to underwriting and fundings.

• Make sure files are processed accurately within SLAs, and in line with company policy and all federal, state, and investor guidelines.

• Set and enforce processing policies, procedures, and best practices across all teams.

• Provide guidance and final escalation support for complex scenarios and exceptions.

• Own hiring strategy, performance management, and retention for the leaders who report to you.

• Other duties as needed to keep the department healthy and growing.

What you will need to join Cascade

• Minimum 5 years of mortgage loan processing experience, with a strong record of leadership.

• Minimum 3 years’ Processing Management Experience

• Extensive Encompass Experience preferred

• Proven, verifiable track record of scaling a processing department. Candidates must be able to point to specific systems, workflows or AI tools they have implemented in prior roles and the measurable results those changes produced, such as cost per loan, turn times, or capacity per FTE.

• Proven ability to lead leaders and build strong, motivated teams that respect and trust their manager.

• Strong working knowledge across agency and portfolio products, or the ability to learn the side you do not know quickly.

• Comfortable using data to manage capacity, production, and quality.

• Excellent communication skills and the confidence to make hard calls and have hard conversations.

• A strategist who brings ideas to the table and is not a yes person.

• Manufactured Housing knowledge a plus.

• Construction to permanent financing experience a plus