GCP / Gemini Enterprise Engineer at Nelnet

Job description

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. This role owns the technical build and deployment of Nelnet’s GenAI solutions on Google Cloud, specifically the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform — Google’s 2026 evolution of Vertex AI, unifying model selection, agent building, and orchestration with what were formerly separate Vertex AI and Agentspace products. The GCP / Gemini Enterprise Engineer translates the Forward Deployed Engineer’s scoped delivery backlog into working agentic solutions, model integrations, and data connections that meet client requirements and Nelnet’s engineering standards. Operating as the core build engineer within Nelnet’s GenAI delivery team, this role is responsible for the technical implementation of agentic assistants, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and model integrations for higher education and SLED clients, in close collaboration with the Data Engineer on data readiness and the AgentOps Engineer on infrastructure and deployment. The Forward Deployed Engineer and Engagement Manager own client scoping and relationship management; this role owns solution build quality, technical architecture, and delivery execution. Comepnsation range for this role: $130,000-$150,000 based on experience 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 consider external candidates that reside in these states: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington. NOTE: Internal Associates working in a remote capacity may be considered for this position. Key Responsibilities: Agentic Solution Development Design, build, and deploy agentic assistants and GenAI applications on the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (Agent Builder, Workspace Studio, Model Garden), translating backlog items from the Forward Deployed Engineer into working solutions. Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and grounding using the platform’s search and grounding capabilities. Integrate Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol and multi-agent orchestration patterns where engagements require them. Model Selection & Tuning Evaluate and select appropriate foundation models from Model Garden (including Gemini and third-party models) based on client use case, cost, and performance requirements. Fine-tune or prompt-engineer models to meet accuracy, safety, and compliance requirements specific to higher education and SLED data. Monitor model performance and iterate based on client feedback and delivery retrospectives. Build and maintain evaluation harnesses and regression test sets to validate agent accuracy, grounding, and hallucination rates prior to release, with added rigor for student-facing and FERPA-sensitive use cases. Platform & Integration Engineering Build live API and tool-calling integrations so agentic solutions can take real-time actions in client systems (SIS, ERP, cas