Technical Program Manager - NFS

Nelnet is a diversified and innovative company committed to enriching lives through the power of service as a student loan servicer, professional services company, consumer loan originator and servicer, payments processor, renewable energy solutions, and K-12 and higher education expert. For over 40 years, Nelnet has been serving its customers, associates, and communities.

The perks of working at Nelnet go beyond our benefits package. When you join the Nelnet team, you're part of a community invested in the success of each individual. That support comes through in our work, as we are united by our mission of creating opportunities for people where they live, learn, and work.

Serves as the delivery and coordination lead for the Data Solutions and Engineering team, owning the intake, prioritization, and communication flow between the team and its stakeholders. Leads a small team of analysts, providing day-to-day direction, coaching, and performance management while coordinating their work within the broader team's roadmap. Manages the team's work board, roadmap, and documentation standards; facilitates daily and recurring team ceremonies; and maintains proactive, regular status communication across multiple concurrent data workstreams. Requires sufficient technical fluency in data warehousing and analytics to translate ambiguous business requests into well-formed, actionable engineering work. Operates as an embedded member of the team rather than an external project office function.

Job Responsibilities

• Owns team intake. Establishes and maintains a single point of entry for requests and questions; triages incoming work within one business day and either answers it, converts it into a scoped ticket with an assigned owner, or schedules it for a future cycle.

• Leads a small team of analysts: assigns and prioritizes their day-to-day work, provides coaching and developmental feedback, conducts performance reviews, and removes blockers so the team can execute its assigned workstreams effectively.

• Translates business requests into well-formed work items with clear scope, acceptance criteria, affected source systems, and definition of done; partners with the Principal Data Engineer on technical scoping and level of effort.

• Maintains the team's JIRA board as an accurate representation of all active work, including workstreams that have historically been tracked outside of JIRA.

• Facilitates daily stand-up and recurring planning and retrospective sessions, keeping them time-boxed and outcome-focused.

• Maintains the team roadmap and delivery calendar; ensures they remain current, visible, and aligned to committed stakeholder dates.

• Serves as the primary communication channel to stakeholder groups, providing proactive scheduled status updates and ensuring no stakeholder learns of a delay or issue after the fact.

• Schedules and drives cross-group working sessions; captures decisions and action items and follows them to closure.

• Re-sequences in-flight work in response to escalations and shifting business priorities within the agreed priority framework; escalates changes to committed scope, stream ownership, or quarterly commitments to the manager.

• Owns documentation and knowledge standards for the team, including Confluence structure, runbooks, data dictionaries, and handoff artifacts; sets and enforces the standard while engineers author domain content.

• Maintains recurring reporting artifacts on data asset status, coverage, and quality posture for leadership and business partners.

• Coordinates validation and business sign-off for data deliverables with the appropriate business owners.

• Tracks and reports delivery metrics, including intake aging, request cycle time, and roadmap adherence; identifies process gaps and risks and implements improvements.

• Protects team focus by absorbing coordination overhead, consolidating recurring questions into self-serve answers, and reducing unplanned interruptions to engineers.

Annual compensation range for this role is $105,000 - $125,000 depending on experience.

This position offers a hybrid work option. Nelnet values flexibility and understands the importance of work-life integration. Our hybrid work environment allows associates living within 30 miles of an office location to work remotely for part of the week, while also fostering collaboration and team connection through in-office presence three days per week.

Please note that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. To be considered, candidates must already be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Additional Job Description

EDUCATION:

Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Analytics, or a related field, and/or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

PMI, CSM, or equivalent certification preferred; not required.

EXPERIENCE:

Three or more years in technical program management, delivery management, or technical business analysis supporting a data, analytics, or software engineering team. Demonstrated experience managing an intake queue and competing priorities across multiple stakeholder groups. Hands-on experience administering work in JIRA and documenting in Confluence. Working knowledge of SQL and data warehousing concepts sufficient to read a query, understand a data model conceptually, and hold a credible scoping conversation with engineers — authoring production code is not an expectation of this role. Experience in financial services, lending, loan servicing, or asset management is preferred. Prior experience leading, mentoring, or managing a small team, formally or informally, is preferred.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS:

Reports to the Manager of Data Solutions. Leads a small team of analysts as direct reports. Works as a peer to the engineering function of the team. Escalates technical scoping and architectural questions to the Principal Data Engineer; escalates prioritization, resourcing, and commitment changes to the Manager.

Our benefits package includes medical, dental, vision, HSA and FSA, generous earned time off, 401K/student loan repayment, life insurance & AD&D insurance, employee assistance program, employee stock purchase program, tuition reimbursement, performance-based incentive pay, short- and long-term disability, and a robust wellness program. Click here to learn more about our benefits: Benefits & Perks - Nelnet Inc.

Nelnet is committed to providing a welcoming and respectful workplace where all associates have the opportunity to succeed. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we ensure that all qualified applicants are considered for employment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion/creed, national origin, gender, sex, marital status, age, disability, use of a guide dog or service animal, sexual orientation, military/veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law. We value the unique contributions of every team member and believe that a positive work environment benefits everyone.  

Qualified individuals with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations in order to apply or compete for positions at Nelnet may request such accommodations by contacting Talent Acquisition at 402-486-5725 or [email protected].

Nelnet is a Drug Free and Tobacco Free Workplace.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Hiring

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