NDS AI Integration Product Owner

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 youre 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.

Key Responsibilities

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Engage stakeholders to understand needs and prioritize AI/automation features by value risk and feasibility.
• Communicate requirements progress value and AI assumptions/limitations at the right level of detail.
• Partner with users and SMEs to define actionable requirements and testable acceptance criteria including quality safety and compliance expectations.
• Report status blockers and risks (data model compliance) to the Product Manager and escalate as needed.

Product Strategy & Roadmap

• Partner with the Product Manager to maintain product vision and strategy for AI-enabled capabilities (agentic AI workflow automation decision support).
• Support roadmap planning aligned to strategy release plans and measurable outcomes (time saved quality cost compliance).
• Promote transparent delivery and decision-making including how AI performance is evaluated and monitored.
• Build domain and solution context (data sources constraints dependencies risks goals) to ensure deliverables meet user needs.

Backlog & Delivery Management

• Own and prioritize the backlog; break AI work into clear epics/stories including data readiness evaluation and rollout.
• Maintain backlog visibility and clarity with a definition of done that includes testing metrics and required documentation (e.g. model/release notes).
• Track development progress and readiness; coordinate demos acceptance releases and post-release AI monitoring.

Team Leadership & Change Management

• Strong stakeholder influence skills ability to influence adoption without direct authority
• Lead or participate in agile ceremonies and help balance discovery experimentation and delivery.
• Clarify priorities outcomes and tradeoffs; coordinate with delivery teams data science security and operations.
• Drive adoption of AI-enabled practices across delivery teams through communication training coordination and feedback loops in addition to feature delivery.

Financial Awareness
Help monitor investment and ROI; support cost/benefit analysis for AI and automation (tools licensing infrastructure operations).

Qualifications

• Experience: Product Owner/Manager (or similar) experience in agile; delivery of technology products with cross-functional teams.
• Skills: Strong communication leadership and stakeholder management; strong analytical/problem-solving; able to explain AI tradeoffs and limitations to technical and non-technical audiences.
• SDLC Expertise: Working knowledge of modern software delivery practices (branching strategies CI/CD code review sprint cadences and delivery metrics) and the ability to apply them to drive consistent measurable delivery outcomes across development teams.
• AI & Automation Acumen: Familiarity with agentic AI patterns (multi-step reasoning tool-calling orchestration) and the risk controls needed to govern autonomous actions in development workflows. Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (Copilot Cursor AI-driven testing or prompt-based automation) and the ability to write testable acceptance criteria for AI features including non-deterministic behavior guardrails and fallback conditions.
• Education: Bachelors degree or equivalent experience.

Starting pay range for this role is $100000 - $120000 based on experience.

This position requires work in support of the Companys contract with the United States Department of Education (ED). As such the United States Government requires that any applicant for this position must complete United States Government security clearance. Effective June 1 2018 ED has informed Nelnet that security clearance applications for foreign nationals are not being accepted or light of this direction from ED Nelnet will be unable to hire applicants without United States citizenship for such positions.

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: LINK.

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 Corporate Recruiting at or.

Nelnet is a Drug Free and Tobacco Free Workplace.