Product Lead, New Ventures

Nelnet Business Services (NBS), a division of Nelnet, Inc., provides payment technology and education services to more than 1,200 higher education institutions, nearly 12,000 K-12 schools, and millions of individual students, families, and supporters across the globe. Our culture of service enables us to form long-lasting and trusted partnerships, while our focus on creativity and innovative solutions empowers our customer communities to thrive.

As Product Lead in New Ventures, you take validated business cases and own the full product lifecycle from there: break it into jobs to be done, features, and screens; define and prioritize the MVP; hand off to engineering; iterate based on real user feedback; and continue building and maintaining the roadmap until the venture is mature enough to hand to a GM and dedicated team.
You're effectively the de-facto product manager for every new venture until it scales. That means you need to be senior enough to set a product vision and detail-oriented enough to execute it yourself.
The other half of this role is structural. As ventures mature, you'll design the product management processes, documentation, and handoff artifacts that make this repeatable—so that when a GM takes over, they inherit a functioning product operation, not just a codebase.JOB RESPONSIBILITIES: Problem Decomposition & Jobs to Be Done

• Take a validated problem statement and break it into customer jobs to be done—what users are actually trying to accomplish and where current solutions fall short
• Conduct solution-focused research: prototype tests, concept walkthroughs, and usability sessions that answer what to build, not whether to build
• Translate jobs to be done into individual features, user flows, and screen-level detail
• Write crisp product briefs that make the tradeoffs explicit and give the team a clear direction to build toward

MVP Scoping & Roadmap

• Define the MVP: the smallest set of features that tests the core value proposition with real users
• Prioritize the roadmap against customer feedback, technical lead times, and continuous improvement signal—and communicate the logic clearly to stakeholders
• Set a point of view on what's in and what's out at each stage, grounded in evidence
• Keep the roadmap current; stakeholders should always know where things stand and why

Iterative Build & Engineering Handoff

• Write specs engineers want to read: scoped, opinionated, with clear acceptance criteria and explicit tradeoffs
• Own the technical handoff—make sure engineering has everything they need to build without coming back for clarification
• Run the sprint process: planning, standups, backlog grooming, retrospectives
• Close the loop on what shipped: feed user feedback and build learnings back into the next iteration cycle
• Decide what's worth iterating, what needs to be rebuilt, and what should be cut—and document the reasoning

Stakeholder Management

• Identify who needs to be involved at each stage of the venture and bring them in at the right moment—not too early to slow things down, not too late to course-correct
• Communicate product decisions in writing to audiences ranging from engineers to executives
• Anchor prioritization conversations in real user signal; make it easy for stakeholders to trust the call even when the answer is no
• Represent the product perspective across the organization; build credibility by doing the work, not just presenting it

Scale, Process Design & Handoff

• Own the product roadmap through scale—continue building, iterating, and maintaining the product until a GM and dedicated team are in place
• As the de-facto PM for each venture, hold the product vision and make the day-to-day calls that keep the venture moving in the right direction
• Design the product management processes, templates, and documentation that make this model repeatable: how specs are written, how roadmaps are maintained, how user feedback is captured and acted on
• When a GM is hired, execute a structured handoff—product vision, roadmap, open decisions, user research, and process documentation—so the incoming team inherits a functioning operation
• Each venture you hand off should leave Venture Factory's product process stronger than when you started

Annual compensation range for this role is $100,000 - $150,000

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.
 

Required

• 5–8 years as a PM, with meaningful time at the 0-to-1 stage—you've taken a problem and turned it into a shipped, iterating product, not just managed a backlog
• Senior enough to set a product vision: you can look at a validated problem and articulate a compelling, directional point of view on what the product should become
• Detail-oriented enough to execute it: you write specs, run sprints, and make the daily product calls without needing someone above you to translate strategy into work
• Demonstrated ability to decompose a high-level problem into jobs to be done, features, user flows, and screen-level specs that engineering can build from
• Experience running solution-focused user research—prototype tests, concept walkthroughs, usability sessions—and feeding that signal into the roadmap continuously
• Practiced at roadmap prioritization across competing inputs—customer feedback, technical lead times, business constraints—and communicating the logic to stakeholders
• Has designed or established product management processes, not just followed them: how specs are written, how work is prioritized, how handoffs are structured
• Stakeholder management across functions—engineering, legal, compliance, sales, business unit leaders—without formal authority
• Strong written communication: can turn a user session into a product brief and a complex tradeoff into a paragraph a VP will act on

Strongly Preferred

• Design fluency—can wireframe a flow and make UX calls without waiting for a designer
• Experience running sprints and owning the full scrum process as the PM
• Experience shipping to B2B buyers where legal, compliance, or procurement is in the critical path

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 Corporate Recruiting at 402-486-5725 or [email protected].

Nelnet is a Drug Free and Tobacco Free Workplace.

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