Head of Engineering
Anticipated Position Start Date: Flexible, with an August 2025 target
Role Type: Full-Time, Salaried
Background: Software development, contractor/team management
Location: Remote, USA-based (up to 10% of travel)
Salary: $150,000-175,000 per year, plus benefits
Who We Are:
The Modern Classrooms Project is a fast-growing 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that empowers educators to build classrooms that respond to every student’s needs. Founded by two award-winning teachers, we lead a movement of educators in implementing a self-paced, mastery-based instructional model that leverages technology to foster human connection, authentic learning, and social-emotional growth.
To date, our free online course and Virtual Mentorship Program have empowered almost 100,000 educators in 150+ countries. We’ve partnered with schools and districts nationwide to train and support both teachers and administrators, and researchers from Johns Hopkins University found “overwhelming positive support” for our approach. We are an ambitious, idealistic team and we are passionate about what we do.
Why We Need You:
For the past seven years, we have empowered educators to use technology more effectively. We haven’t created tech tools of our own, but instead helped teachers make better use of the tools they already have.
Over time, however, we’ve realized the limitations of existing tools - and have developed our own ideas for easy-to-use tech products that will help teachers implement self-paced, mastery-based instruction in their own classrooms. We have now secured funding to build out a team that will develop these tools.
At the moment, we’re using a few different contractors to build a few different products, and relying on guidance from external advisors to ensure those projects proceed smoothly. So far, so good. But as these tools become a more important part of our work, we need a technical expert - and, eventually, a technical team - both to ensure the quality of our individual products and to ensure that the various products fit together seamlessly.
We need you to come in and take immediate ownership of our existing tech projects, overseeing our contractors and potentially helping to build prototypes and features yourself. Then, as our suite of tools continues to evolve, we’ll need you to build and support a high-performing technical team, which ensures that the products we build meet our teachers’ and their students’ needs. And at all times, we’ll look to you not only for your technical expertise, but also for your insights into our products themselves.
In developing tech tools that solve the problems our teachers face every day, we see an opportunity to make these teachers more effective, while making our evidence-based model more accessible to any educator who wants to help all of their students succeed. And we need you to help us make that happen.
What You’ll Do:
As our first technical hire and Head of Engineering, you will report directly to MCP’s Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, and work closely with MCP’s CEO and Product Team. While you’ll start out as an individual contributor, our plan is for you to build a small, high-quality tech team over time.
In the short term, you will:
- Oversee and contribute to the design and development of products currently being built by contractors, both to develop excellent products and to ensure that these products fit together.
- Establish and maintain MCP’s technical infrastructure, including architecture, development, and deployment of core platforms and tools, while ensuring data security, privacy, and compliance.
As our tech products evolve, you will:
- Help MCP develop and execute a product roadmap for the tech tools we are building, including scoping new features and building initial prototypes.
- Determine the team structure required to achieve MCP’s product-development goals, then build and mentor a high-performing engineering team accordingly.
You’ll spend your days making sure that Modern Classroom educators have the tools they need to provide self-paced, mastery-based instruction effectively and efficiently.
You Should Apply If:
- You’re a builder. You welcome ideas but seek real solutions. When you don’t know if something will work, you create a prototype and find out; when you know that something does work, you invest the time and effort to make it work well. You have a track record of building amazing things.
- You see the bigger picture. You take the time to understand users’ needs, then ensure those needs are met. As you implement the product roadmap, you also help shape it, suggesting features and ideas that make users’ lives easier. You understand how all the pieces fit together.
- You love to learn. You’re interested in the latest developments in AI, and motivated to apply them enhance both your and others’ work. You’re also motivated by MCP’s mission and vision, and eager to contribute your own insights into teacher- and student-facing product design.
- You’re a team-builder. You have experience managing vendors, contractors, and FTE engineers in order to build products on time and within budget. You can evaluate various options for staffing a project and determine which will best achieve the organization’s goals.
- You want to shape the world. You’re motivated to be part of something larger than yourself. You believe that the highest value of your talent is using it to empower others. You care about your legacy. You’re ready to make a real difference in educators’ and young people’s lives.
It Would Also Be Helpful If:
- You have experience working in a startup-like environment and communicating and collaborating with non-technical stakeholders, while assuming a high degree of autonomy and responsibility.
- You have strong full-stack development skills and familiarity with modern frameworks and infrastructure (e.g., React, Node.js, Python, AWS, etc.).
- You have experience building tech products that effectively leverage AI.
- You have experience handling sensitive and/or confidential data, particularly in an education context.
Compensation and Benefits: We offer a competitive compensation package, as well as the opportunity to work in a fast-growing nonprofit that is on a mission to improve education worldwide. This includes:
- Salaried Position: $150,000-$175,000 per year
- Employer-sponsored health insurance through CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
- Participation in Vanguard 403(b) deferred-compensation plan with 3% employer match
- Paid Time Off, inclusive of: vacation/PTO (20 days), paid holidays, paid parental leave, sick and safe paid time off, "Me Days", and the ability to earn paid Comp time off
- Annual budget for MCP-funded Continuous Learning for the program(s) you request (available after 6 months of continuous full-time employment)
- FSA and Dependent Care FSA access
- 1x Salary Life Insurance company-paid coverage
- Access to Wishbone Pet Insurance Benefit
- Ability to work remotely and to set own hours (within reason)
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STATEMENT OF NON-DISCRIMINATION: The Modern Classrooms Project is committed to equal employment opportunity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or ethnicity. We are strongly committed to hiring a diverse team and encourage applications from traditionally under-represented backgrounds.