Fast Facts

Nelnet is seeking an IT System Reliability Engineer to ensure solutions for client applications and services are reliable, secure, and perform exceptionally. This role is pivotal in collaborating with development teams, focusing on automation, security compliance, and continuous performance improvement.

Responsibilities: The role involves ensuring systems run reliably, collaborating with dev teams on technical roadmaps, automating processes, overseeing application health monitoring, and managing audit, security, and compliance standards.

Skills: Candidates should have experience with cloud architecture, deployment processes, software engineering, source control, automation scripting, RESTful API development, and familiarity with AWS and Kubernetes.

Qualifications: Preferred qualifications include a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and 5+ years of software engineering experience, with knowledge of software development lifecycle and federal compliance preferred.

Location: Lincoln - Nelnet Center, United States of America

Compensation: $110000 - $155000 / Annually

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.

Nelnet is a student loan servicer that's grown into a fiber internet pioneer, real estate investor, and software provider. But that's just the beginning. With 6,500 associates and growing, we take our business wherever superior customer experiences and ingenuity are needed.

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.

Nelnet believes in a hybrid work environment that accommodates both in-office and remote work. This model promotes a positive work-life balance and culture, enabling in-person collaboration when possible while also providing benefits associated with remote work. The standard hybrid work schedule includes 24 hours of in-office work each week, for associates that reside within 30 miles of an office. This is subject to change, based on manager discretion.

At this time, we are unable to move forward with external candidates that reside in these states: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington.

Annual compensation range for this role is $110,000-$155,000

What you’ll do:

As a System Reliability Engineer at Nelnet, you will:

•   Ensure solutions are running with a rich feature set, reliable, secure, and stellar performance level. You will collaborate with development teams as they define technical roadmaps, build, implement and support client applications, services, and back-end systems using leading-edge technologies and practices. You will focus on automation, application health monitoring, testing, access management and deployment processes while taking a holistic view of system health and structure. 

•   Be responsible for audit, security, privacy, and compliance by ensuring the organization conforms to guidelines and associated rules and regulations defined by both internal and external standards. You will be accountable for ensuring that the process within the organization adheres to standards defined by the SDLC.

As a System Reliability Engineer, a typical day might include:

1.   Partnering with development teams to ensure the systems they build, and support are reliable and meet service level objectives (SLO)

2.   Identifying/implementing automated solutions for gathering and analyzing metrics and logs from both operating systems and applications. Metrics will be used to assist in performance tuning and fault finding

3.   Setting up application health monitors, alerts, and dashboards

4.   Automating processes to improve system support, release procedures and the developer experience

5.   Participating in defining technical roadmaps, system design, platform management, and capacity planning

6.   Providing post implementation support including, but not limited to, monitoring application performance and debugging existing code

7.   Measuring and optimizing system performance, with an eye toward pushing our capabilities forward, getting ahead of customer needs, and innovating to continually improve

8.   Educating others and being a champion for the organization on the importance of having proper controls and supporting processes on our systems

9.   Acting as the representative for the system(s) they own, to include:

o   Representing the system to other teams within the organization (ie Enterprise Risk Management. Corporate Security, Audit Services, Infrastructure (Tech Support, Change Control and others as applicable), Security, DBAs, Release & Maintenance teams).

o   Owning the processes and best practices that guide the ongoing development and maintenance of the system.

o   Working with the Director, Solution Architect and Software Architects to define application technology road map for their system(s).

You Have:

•   Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and/or commensurate experience.

•   Experience: An ideal team member will be a full stack engineer that has solid experience with many of these technologies, however select specialization in just a few will also be considered with great interest.

1.   Experience with cloud architecture, networking, deployment processes, and infrastructure as code tools

2.   5+ years of software engineering experience

3.   Experience with source control (Git, branching, merging, etc.), static analysis tools and CI/CD Pipelines

4.   Scripting experience enabling process automation

5.   Experience with RESTful API driven software development and automated testing

6.   Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, Linux and TypeScript a plus.

7.   Experience with OpenId Connect, OAuth or other modern authentication schemes.

8.   Experience with AppDynamics, Splunk, Pendo, OTHERS?? a plus

•   Competencies – Skills/Knowledge/Abilities:

o   Motivated and hardworking. You’re motivated to do your best work, always.

o   Detail oriented. You like to go fast, but still think it through.

o   Care for clients. You care about creating an exceptional user experience, even if you don’t work on client-side code.

o   Driven to create something big. You have lofty ambitions and want to be part of a team that changes an industry.

o   Excellent verbal and written communication skills; with the ability to communicate technical concepts and strategies at all levels of the organization.

o   In-depth knowledge of the full software development lifecycle; with specific experience pertinent to agile or iterative approaches to delivery preferred.

o   Knowledge in the area of Federal Government NIST 800-53 compliance preferred.

o   Curiosity and desire to learn new technology.

We Have:

•   A culture with enterprise resources – the open, collaborative, fast-paced culture of a startup with the trust, benefits, resources, and safety of an established enterprise!

•   Cutting edge technology – you’re a part of building something that is brand new and has the potential to change the financial services space! 

•   A culture of innovation -- you’ll be surrounded by people who think outside the box and are constantly looking for ways to improve, just like you do! 

•   An agile team with dedicated people – we care about you and work hard for each other! 

This position requires work in support of the Company’s 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 processed. In 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 402-486-5725 or[email protected].

Nelnet is a Drug Free and Tobacco Free Workplace.