Analytics Tooling Engineer - NDS

Overview

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 Analytics Tooling Engineer is responsible for implementing, maintaining, and optimizing the technical tools and environments used by the NDS Analytics, Insights, & Metrics teams.

This role manages platform configuration, development environments, deployments, automation, access controls, and day-to-day operational reliability across analytics systems. The position ensures that analysts and data teams have dependable, secure, and well-governed access to data and analytics resources. The role is hands-on, execution-focused, and supports the ongoing improvement of analytics tools and workflows.

External applicants must reside within 30 miles of the below office locations:
Centennial, CO;
Lincoln, NE;
Sidney, NE;
Madison, WI. 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.

• Configure, administer, and support analytics platforms including Snowflake, SQL Server, Netezza, Power BI, Git Lab, and related Analytics tools.
• Troubleshoot and resolve platform issues, outages, and performance problems.

• Build, maintain, and monitor automated jobs, data refreshes, CI/CD pipelines, and workflow orchestration tools.
• Implement error handling, alerting, and system monitoring to support reliability.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of operational processes and platform stability.

• Implement access models, workspace structures, permission updates, and security configurations aligned to enterprise standards.
• Support compliance reviews, audit requests, and governance controls.
• Follow data governance and Info Sec guidelines in all tool configurations.

• Assist with configuration and support of AI-related analytics tools, environments, and safe-use patterns.
• Help with the identification, assessment, and integration of new tools and technologies into the analytics ecosystem under guidance from architecture or leadership.
• Support prototype development and testing efforts.

• Create and maintain system documentation, setup guides, runbooks, and knowledge base articles.
• Provide technical support to analysts and developers for platform issues and usage questions.
• Contribute to internal training and utilization of tools and best practices.

• Work with vendors to resolve technical issues, support updates, and validate changes.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering, Infrastructure, Enterprise Architecture, and Governance teams to ensure alignment and smooth operations.
• Communicate technical impacts, status updates, and operational risks as needed.

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or related field; or proven professional experience with analytics platforms and tooling.

EXPERIENCE:
Required

• Strong SQL skills and experience supporting and administering Snowflake environments.
• Experience administering or supporting Power BI environments (e.g., Data Gateways, API Integration, etc.).
• Experience troubleshooting performance issues, platform errors, and system failures.

Preferred

• Experience with automation/orchestration tools (e.g., Dataiku, Alteryx, Microsoft Fabric, etc.).
• Familiarity with Python (preferred) or another scripting language commonly used in analytics engineering.
• Experience…