Group Product Manager, Horizon

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. Nelnet Campus Commerce (NCC) is building the future of higher education financial services through our next-generation Horizon platform, and we are currently recruiting the team that will bring that platform to life. As a part of that effort, we are seeking an experienced, hands-on product leader—someone who will guide a small team of Product Managers while staying close enough to the work to ship alongside them. The Group Product Manager is a player-coach role. You will personally own a core area of the Horizon platform—running discovery, writing requirements, and shipping with your engineering and design partners—while leading and growing a small team of Product Managers who own the surrounding workstreams. You will keep the group aligned across engineering, design, sales, and client success, and make sure every release lands with real impact for the institutions and students Horizon serves. Reporting into NCC’s senior product leadership, you will set the bar for product craft on Horizon. JOB RESPONSIBILITIES Hands-On Product Ownership Personally own a core area of the Horizon platform end to end—running discovery, writing requirements, making the prioritization calls, and partnering daily with engineering and design to ship. Stay close to the details: dig into the data, prototype and pressure-test ideas, review designs, and validate solutions with real users so the team ships work that is genuinely useful. Set the bar for product craft by example, modeling the discovery, writing, and decision-making you expect from the PMs you lead. Team Leadership & Development Lead, mentor, and grow a small team of Product Managers responsible for Horizon workstreams, setting clear expectations and helping each PM sharpen their craft. Foster a high-agency, outcome-oriented culture where PMs operate with confidence in ambiguity and hold themselves accountable to measurable business results. Balance hands-on coaching with real autonomy—giving your PMs ownership of their areas while stepping in directly when a problem needs your attention. Product Strategy & Execution Own the strategy and roadmap for your group’s areas of Horizon, translating NCC’s broader product vision into a sequenced plan that delivers value to institutions and students. Identify and build practical applications of AI across your areas of the platform, pushing for experiences that are genuinely useful rather than incrementally better. Keep a close eye on the higher education payments landscape, competitive moves, and emerging regulatory requirements, and fold what you learn back into the roadmap. Cross-Functional Collaboration Partner with sales, marketing, implementation, and client success to plan and execute Horizon launches, making sure each release is market-ready and lands commercially. Work closely with engineering on architecture and delivery cadence, managing trade-offs transparently to keep both product quality and timelines on track. Define success metrics for your areas—spanning adoption, retention, payment completion, and institutional satisfaction—and hold the team accountable to outcomes, not just outputs. Collaborate with compliance, security, and risk teams to ensure releases meet PCI Level 1 standards and applicable higher education regulatory requirements. Annual compensation range for this role is $115,000 - $165,000 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 EDUCATION Required: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Finance, or a related field. Preferred: Advanced degree with emphasis on strategy, technology, or leadership. EXPERIENCE Required: 6+ years of product management experience with a strong track record of shipping products yourself, including 1+ years mentoring or directly managing other Product Managers. Experience partnering with go-to-market teams to launch complex SaaS or platform products. Track record of personally shipping AI-enabled or data-driven software products with measurable business impact. Proven ability to align and influence stakeholders across engineering, design, and commercial functions. Preferred: Experience in higher education technology, fintech, payments, or B2B2C platform businesses. Experience contributing to or leading platform modernization, replatforming, or migration work. Familiarity with PCI Level 1 compliance, payment processing workflows, or ERP integrations (Workday, Banner, PeopleSoft, Colleague). YOU HAVE Player-coach mindset:  You are energized by doing the work and developing others at the same time. You are as comfortable writing a spec or digging into data as you are coaching a PM through a hard call—and you know when each is needed. Vision that rallies teams:  You articulate a compelling direction for your product area and your team, and make others want to build it with you. Your team knows exactly what winning looks like and why it matters. High agency:  You take ownership of outcomes beyond the formal