Senior AppSec Lead: Secure SDLC & AI-Driven Testing

Nelnet, Inc.; Nebraska; Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

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

Wellness program

Job summary

Nelnet, Inc. is seeking a Senior Application Security Engineer to lead hands-on testing, secure code review, and secure SDLC enablement across applications. You will collaborate with engineering, cloud, and product teams to identify and reduce security risks from design through production.

The role emphasizes threat modeling, AI-assisted tooling, and communicating risk to both technical and non-technical audiences. Hybrid work is available within a U.S. footprint.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Preferred: Advanced degree or specialized training in application security, cybersecurity, software engineering, cloud security, or related technical discipline.

Responsibilities

• Lead manual source code review across priority applications, with emphasis on business logic, access-control, authentication, authorization, and data-protection risks.
• Perform and guide application security testing using SAST, DAST, SCA, container scanning, secrets detection, and web/API testing methodologies.
• Expand and support the Security Champions program through enablement, coaching, secure coding guidance, and practical developer resources.
• Develop and improve automated source code review processes and CI/CD security checks to help scale consistent application security coverage.
• Partner with engineering, cloud, and product teams to embed secure SDLC practices into design, development, testing, release, and production support activities.
• Create clear vulnerability reports that explain risk, business impact, urgency, and recommended remediation steps for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Evaluate and apply AI-assisted tooling to accelerate code review, testing, triage, reporting, and secure development workflows.
• Advise teams on threat modeling for web, API, mobile, cloud, and AI-enabled application designs.

Skills

Cybersecurity

Proficiencies in required areas

Coding/Programming Languages

Automation & Scripting

Testing & Quality Assurance

Stakeholder Management & Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field

Advanced degree or specialized training in application security, cybersecurity, software engineering, cloud security, or related technical discipline

Job description

Nelnet, Inc. is seeking a Senior Application Security Engineer to lead hands-on testing, secure code review, and secure SDLC enablement across applications. You will collaborate with engineering, cloud, and product teams to identify and reduce security risks from design through production.

The role emphasizes threat modeling, AI-assisted tooling, and communicating risk to both technical and non-technical audiences. Hybrid work is available within a U.S. footprint.