How to Apply to Sixth Street

10 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 19 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Apply through job-boards.greenhouse.io/sixthstreet via sixthstreet.com/careers; everything routes through Greenhouse.
  • Be specific about which platform (TAO, Direct Lending, Asset-Based Finance, Growth, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Sports/Media/Entertainment, Insurance) you are targeting and why.
  • Walk into super day able to dissect 1-2 transactions in board-memo-grade detail, including what you got wrong.
  • Show cross-vertical thinking; the TAO model is a real cultural differentiator, not marketing copy.
  • Lead with modeling craft, deal sheet density, and quantified outcomes on your resume.
  • Bulge-bracket banking, top-tier consulting, and prior buy-side reps are the strongest feeders; analyst program is the on-cycle door for new grads.
  • Expect a brutal reference and back-channel process; integrity is the gating value.
  • Know the difference between Sixth Street's culture and a megafund's; the firm runs lean, senior-led teams and prizes craft over scale.
  • Sports, Media & Entertainment runs a more entrepreneurial culture than the credit platforms; tailor your pitch accordingly.

About Sixth Street

Sixth Street is a global investment firm with more than $130 billion in assets under management as of late 2025, making it one of the largest and most distinctive multi-strategy alternative asset managers in the world. The firm was founded in 2009 by Alan Waxman, who had previously run and served as CIO of Goldman Sachs's Americas Special Situations Group (AmSSG), one of the most respected proprietary investing platforms on the Street. Waxman built Sixth Street as a strategic partnership with TPG, branded as TPG Sixth Street Partners, with TPG anchoring the platform with roughly $2 billion of fund commitments and giving the new firm institutional scaffolding while it scaled. Over the next decade, Sixth Street outgrew the partnership and in May 2020 the two firms announced an agreement to operate as fully independent, unaffiliated businesses. The firm dropped the TPG prefix and rebranded simply as 'Sixth Street' at $34 billion in AUM at the time of the split, and TPG retained a passive minority economic stake that has since been further reduced (and, per public reporting, sold back to the firm). Co-founders David Bonderman and Jim Coulter of TPG had been involved at the original launch but stepped fully away as part of the disaffiliation. Sixth Street is structured around a deliberate 'one-firm, cross-platform' model rather than as a federation of siloed funds. Its investment platforms include TAO Partners (the firm's flagship cross-vertical, long-duration strategy that can underwrite across the entire opportunity set), Direct Lending and Asset-Based Finance, Growth, Fundamental Strategies, Opportunities, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Agriculture, Sixth Street Insurance Solutions, and Sports, Media & Entertainment. The publicly traded Sixth Street Specialty Lending (NYSE: TSLX) BDC and Sixth Street Lending Partners are part of the credit franchise. Notable investments span Spotify (pre-IPO financing), Airbnb (private financing during COVID), Walt Disney Company-related real estate transactions, Aon, BGC Partners, the San Antonio Spurs (a roughly 20% stake acquired in 2021), Bay FC of the NWSL (anchor investor in the league's expansion to the Bay Area at a record $53 million franchise fee plus approximately $125 million of total investment), a 30% interest for 20 years in the commercial operations of Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu stadium alongside Legends (a roughly €360 million transaction, since renegotiated in 2026), and minority positions in the Boston Celtics and San Francisco Giants ownership groups. Sixth Street is headquartered in San Francisco and New York and operates additional offices in Dallas, Boston, Houston, Miami, Greenwich, London, Dublin, Madrid, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne, with roughly 700 employees globally.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Search openings on the Sixth Street careers site (sixthstreet

    Search openings on the Sixth Street careers site (sixthstreet.com/careers and sixthstreet.com/current-opportunities), which routes all applications through the firm's Greenhouse-powered job board at job-boards.greenhouse.io/sixthstreet. Submit a tailored resume, location preference, and any required writing samples or transcripts; for early-careers and analyst roles, expect to upload your transcript and SAT/ACT scores.

  2. 2
    Recruiter screen (typically 30 minutes by phone or video)

    Recruiter screen (typically 30 minutes by phone or video). Talent acquisition will probe motivation, why Sixth Street rather than a megafund or a bulge-bracket BB, your understanding of the firm's cross-platform model, and your background. Be precise about which platform (Direct Lending, TAO, Growth, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Sports/Media/Entertainment, Insurance, Asset-Based Finance) you are targeting and why.

  3. 3
    First-round technical or case interviews with mid-level professionals from the h

    First-round technical or case interviews with mid-level professionals from the hiring team. Investment seats lean heavily on modeling and case discussion (LBO, credit waterfall, unit economics, liquidation analysis, or asset-based finance structuring depending on platform). Technology and Finance/Operations seats lean on system design, data, accounting, or domain-specific case work.

  4. 4
    Onsite 'super day' with multiple senior partners and platform leaders, typically

    Onsite 'super day' with multiple senior partners and platform leaders, typically 4-8 back-to-back conversations. Plan to walk through one or two transactions or projects from your prior life in deep, board-memo-grade detail. Behavioral STAR questions, fit conversations, and a culture/values cross-check are part of every super day.

  5. 5
    Take-home or live modeling case (more common for investing roles at the analyst

    Take-home or live modeling case (more common for investing roles at the analyst and associate levels). Expect a 24-48 hour turn on a credit, growth, or real-asset case, followed by a debrief.

  6. 6
    Reference checks

    Reference checks. Sixth Street performs deep references and frequently triangulates back-channel references through its own network in addition to the names you provide.

  7. 7
    Offer and platform fit conversation

    Offer and platform fit conversation. For senior hires, expect a structured conversation about how you would interface with TAO and adjacent platforms, since the firm prizes cross-platform underwriting. The Sixth Street Analyst Program and Summer Internship Program (for rising seniors) are the two main on-cycle entry points for new graduates; experienced-hire pathways generally come from 1-3 years at a bulge-bracket investment bank, megafund private equity, credit fund, consulting, or top-tier startup operating roles.

Resume Tips for Sixth Street

recommended

Lead with deal sheet density

Lead with deal sheet density. For investing roles, list 2-5 transactions with your specific role, deal size, structure, your contribution to underwriting/diligence/modeling, and outcome. Vague 'supported deal teams' bullets are a non-starter.

recommended

Prior buy-side reps are preferred for associate-and-above seats; for analyst sea

Prior buy-side reps are preferred for associate-and-above seats; for analyst seats, bulge-bracket investment banking (Goldman SSG, Morgan Stanley, JPM, Evercore, Lazard, Centerview, PJT, Moelis) or top-tier consulting are the strongest feeders.

recommended

Modeling craft must be obvious

Modeling craft must be obvious. Call out LBO, three-statement, credit/waterfall, and asset-by-asset cash-flow models you have built end-to-end. For real estate and infrastructure, name the underwriting frameworks (DCF on long-duration cash flows, residual value sensitivities).

recommended

Academic pedigree carries weight on this resume screen

Academic pedigree carries weight on this resume screen. Include GPA (round only if you must, never inflate), SAT/ACT, and any relevant honors. Do not bury this for early-career roles.

recommended

For Technology and Data Platform roles, lead with stack (Python, SQL, dbt, Snowf

For Technology and Data Platform roles, lead with stack (Python, SQL, dbt, Snowflake/Databricks, AWS/GCP, Terraform) and ship-evidence: production systems you owned, scale metrics, and the user impact rather than feature lists.

recommended

Show sector or asset-class fluency

Show sector or asset-class fluency. If you are targeting Direct Lending, demonstrate credit chops; for Growth, show software/SaaS or fintech investing; for Sports, Media & Entertainment, show entertainment, sports rights, or live-events transaction exposure; for Real Estate or Infrastructure, name the asset categories you have underwritten.

recommended

Signal cross-vertical thinking

Signal cross-vertical thinking. The TAO model rewards investors who can move between credit, equity, asset-based, and structured solutions. If you have done this in your prior seat, name it explicitly in a bullet rather than burying it in a job summary.

recommended

Quantify everything

Quantify everything. IRRs, MOIC, deal sizes, AUM raised, throughput improvements, latency reductions, dollars saved or generated. Sixth Street is an evidence-driven culture and the resume is the first proof point.

ATS System: Greenhouse

Sixth Street uses Greenhouse Recruiting as its applicant tracking system, with all openings published on its branded job board at job-boards.greenhouse.io/sixthstreet and surfaced from sixthstreet.com/careers and sixthstreet.com/current-opportunities. Greenhouse is a structured-hiring ATS used by most top-tier investment firms and high-bar tech companies; it parses uploaded resumes (PDF and DOCX), supports custom application questions per role, and routes structured interview scorecards back to recruiters and hiring panels.

  • Submit a clean PDF resume that parses cleanly: single column, standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills), no images, no text inside header/footer regions, and no tables or text boxes that fragment the parse.
  • Mirror the job description's exact terminology where you legitimately have the experience (e.g., 'asset-based finance,' 'LBO model,' 'credit waterfall,' 'TAO,' 'IC memo'). Greenhouse parses keywords for recruiter screens.
  • Fill every custom question Sixth Street adds to the application; recruiters read these and use them to triage, especially platform fit and location preference.
  • Use a consistent name, email, and LinkedIn URL across applications so Greenhouse correctly de-duplicates your candidate profile across roles and over time.
  • Tailor your resume to the specific platform you are applying to (Direct Lending vs. Growth vs. Real Estate vs. Sports/Media/Entertainment); the same resume sent to every opening is a recruiter signal of low intent.
  • Apply to one or two roles that are a genuine fit rather than spraying every opening; Greenhouse exposes application history to the recruiting team and over-applying reads as unfocused.

Complete Greenhouse Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

Sixth Street's interview culture flows directly from Alan Waxman's 'all-weather' investment philosophy and the platform's 'one-firm, cross-platform' operating model.

Waxman has publicly framed the firm's approach around underwriting capital that has to perform across the cycle, with a strong sense of 'first-loss' discipline (you protect the downside before you reach for upside), and around what he describes as a 'fingertip feel' for risk that develops only through reps and pattern recognition. Interviewers test for both halves of that doctrine. Expect to be asked to walk through one or two transactions from your background in board-memo-grade detail: deal sourcing, structure, the comp set, the downside scenario you stress-tested, the things you got wrong, and what you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight. Hand-waving on numbers, structure, or your specific role is fatal. Equally expect deep behavioral conversations that probe intellectual humility, conviction, and the ability to defend a view under pressure without becoming brittle. Senior partners will press you, change facts mid-case, and watch how you update; the goal is to see whether you have a real risk model or a memorized pitch. Because the TAO Partners model is the firm's flagship and a defining differentiator, candidates targeting investing seats are expected to think across asset classes. You should be comfortable explaining when a situation is best expressed as a senior secured loan versus structured equity versus a sale-leaseback versus a preferred instrument, and why. Pure single-asset-class fluency is fine for a specialist seat, but you will be a stronger candidate if you can pattern-match across the toolkit. The Sports, Media & Entertainment team carries a noticeably more entrepreneurial, operator-flavored culture than the credit and growth platforms; interviews there spend more time on commercial creativity, league dynamics, rights structures, and ownership-group politics, alongside the financial work. Across all platforms, the firm screens hard for integrity, work ethic, and craft in written communication, since investment committee memos are the unit of currency. The standard is 'would I want to read this person's IC memo at 11pm,' not 'is this person clever.'

What Sixth Street Looks For

  • Differentiated thinking. Sixth Street rewards original views over consensus pitches, and partners will press you to defend why your view is non-obvious.
  • Modeling craft. Models are tools for thinking, not deliverables. The bar is precision, transparent assumptions, and the ability to defend every cell.
  • Sector and asset-class fluency. Deep expertise in your lane plus the ability to think across credit, equity, real assets, and structured situations (the TAO mindset).
  • Intellectual humility paired with conviction. You can hold a strong view, update it on new evidence, and not confuse the two.
  • Work ethic and ownership. The firm runs on small, senior-led deal teams; everyone carries weight and there is nowhere to hide.
  • Integrity. The diligence and reference process is invasive on character; any signal of cutting corners is disqualifying.
  • Communication craft for IC memos. Clear, structured writing that tees up the decision, the risks, and the recommendation without padding.
  • Cross-platform instinct. Bonus for candidates who can spot opportunities for one platform sitting in another team's deal flow.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Sixth Street pay relative to other top buy-side firms?
Sixth Street is widely understood to pay at the top of the buy-side market for investment professionals. Public Glassdoor data and Wall Street Oasis reporting place analyst total compensation roughly in the $200K-$250K range, associates around $300K-$400K, vice presidents in the mid-six figures, and principals/managing directors comfortably into seven figures with carry. Strategic Capital and the senior credit teams are reported to be among the highest-paying seats. Compensation is heavily weighted toward variable bonus and, at senior levels, carry across funds. Cash base salaries are competitive but not the differentiator; the leverage is in performance-driven bonus and long-dated carry economics tied to the platform's funds.
What is the difference between TAO Partners and the sector- or strategy-specific funds?
TAO (The Adjacencies Opportunities) Partners is Sixth Street's flagship cross-vertical, long-duration capital pool that can underwrite across the firm's entire opportunity set: credit, growth equity, real assets, structured situations, and sports/entertainment. Sector- and strategy-specific funds (Direct Lending, Growth, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Insurance, Specialty Lending) have narrower mandates and structures. For candidates this matters because TAO seats reward generalist breadth and cross-platform pattern recognition, while sector-specific seats reward depth in a particular asset class or industry vertical. The firm's culture pushes information across these teams rather than siloing it.
Is the Sports, Media & Entertainment team really culturally different?
Yes. The Sports, Media & Entertainment platform is more entrepreneurial and operator-adjacent than the firm's credit and growth platforms. The work mixes traditional financial underwriting with league dynamics, rights structures, ownership-group politics, and franchise operations. Sixth Street's portfolio here is unusually deep for an investment firm: anchor investor in Bay FC (NWSL), 20% of the San Antonio Spurs, minority stakes in the Boston Celtics and San Francisco Giants ownership groups, a 20-year deal for 30% of the commercial operations of Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu (alongside Legends), plus Legends itself. Candidates here should bring sports/media transaction experience or operating credibility, not just financial chops.
Should I target the San Francisco office or the New York office?
Both are co-headquarters, and the firm operates as one team across them rather than as competing power centers. As a rough heuristic, San Francisco skews toward Growth, Sports/Media/Entertainment, and West Coast technology coverage; New York skews toward credit, Direct Lending, Asset-Based Finance, Real Estate, and capital markets. Investment committee discussions and platform leadership are intentionally distributed across both. Pick the office that matches the platform you are targeting and where you can credibly show a network and a long-term commitment.
How does the analyst program and the analyst-to-associate ladder work?
Sixth Street runs a Summer Internship Program for rising senior undergraduates (10 weeks, project-based, paired with Sixth Street University training and structured mentorship) and uses it as the primary feeder for full-time analyst conversion. Full-time analysts are placed onto specific platforms and work in small, senior-led deal teams from day one. Promotion to associate is driven by demonstrated investment judgment, deal contribution, and writing craft; this is a career-track environment rather than a two-and-out analyst program, and associate-and-above is the seat where you start owning IC memos and portfolio company engagement.
What backgrounds does Sixth Street prefer for experienced hires?
For investment roles, the strongest feeders are bulge-bracket investment banking (Goldman SSG, Morgan Stanley, JPM, Evercore, Lazard, Centerview, PJT, Moelis), megafund or upper-middle-market private equity, dedicated credit funds, and adjacent buy-side seats. For Growth, software/SaaS-focused growth equity and crossover funds are common feeders. For Real Estate and Infrastructure, peer real-asset funds and infrastructure platforms. For Tech, Data, and Product roles, senior individual contributors and managers from large-scale data, ML, and platform teams (cloud-native infrastructure, data platforms, generative AI) are the target profile.
Why do Sixth Street offers sometimes get rejected?
The two most common reasons are competing offers from Apollo, Blackstone, KKR, Ares, Carlyle, Brookfield, and other megafunds with deeper carry pools at the senior level, and lifestyle considerations versus those firms or versus less intense buy-side seats. Sixth Street runs lean, senior-led teams that move quickly across complex situations; that is energizing for some candidates and exhausting for others. Candidates who want a megafund's brand recognition or a lower-intensity seat sometimes select against the firm. Compensation is rarely the loss reason since Sixth Street pays at the top of market.
What kills an interview at Sixth Street?
Three things. First, vague impact on your deal sheet: if you cannot explain your specific role, the structure, the downside case, and what you got wrong, you are out. Second, an inability to walk a partner through one transaction in real depth, including the model and the comp set; rehearsed pitches collapse the moment a senior interviewer changes a fact. Third, brittleness under pressure: if you cannot update a view when presented with new information, or you cannot defend conviction when challenged, you will read as either inflexible or under-formed. Integrity issues surfaced in references are an instant disqualifier.
What is the firm's actual AUM and how should I think about scale?
Sixth Street has reported more than $130 billion in assets under management as of late 2025, up from roughly $34 billion at the time of the 2020 disaffiliation from TPG and roughly $75 billion in 2024. Growth has been driven by TAO, the credit platforms (Direct Lending, Specialty Lending, Lending Partners, Asset-Based Finance), Insurance Solutions, and the expanding Sports/Media/Entertainment portfolio. Scale matters because it lets the firm underwrite very large, structured, multi-asset transactions that few competitors can match in size or flexibility, which is part of why deal flow concentrates here.

Open Positions

Sixth Street currently has 19 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 19 open positions at Sixth Street

Related Resources

Similar Companies

Related Articles

Sources

  1. —
  2. —
  3. —
  4. —
  5. —
  6. —
  7. —
  8. —