Outschool is a marketplace of live online classes for kids. Our mission is to inspire kids to love learning. We provide small group classes that meet over live video chat where learners connect with teachers and classmates who share their interests. These classes are offered through our marketplace and conducted on our remote learning platform.

Skills: GraphQL, JavaScript, Node.js, Python, React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

THE COMPANY

Outschool's mission is to inspire kids to love learning. We achieve this by linking learning to kids’ interests, connecting them with other classmates who share their passions, and giving them the autonomy to pick their own paths. Our small group classes meet over live video chat with teachers who celebrate their unique strengths and empower all learners to develop confidence and a strong sense of self.

We're also focused on removing barriers for historically underserved learners who face systemic challenges to their success. In 2020, we started Outschool.org and began offering financial assistance to families in need. We are currently creating an Educator Endowment Fund to appreciate the teachers who are so central to our mission of inspiring kids to love learning.

We believe that diversity drives learning. To meet our mission, we encourage, support, and celebrate different ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds. As a fully distributed (remote) team, we challenge one another to find the most effective way to empower learners, teachers, and parents. Your name, race, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and age are not barriers; they are why we want to work with you. We invite talented and creative candidates who value the importance of nurturing a child's boundless curiosity to join us on this journey.

The pandemic has been challenging for families all over the globe. We acted quickly and worked together to provide quality resources to learners, parents, and teachers in the past year. As communities worldwide rethink their approach to education, Outschool will continue to innovate and provide kids with unique opportunities to explore their passions.

Earlier this year, Techcrunch recognized Outschool as the newest EdTech unicorn. We've also been named Fast Company’s most innovative EdTech company in the world, and one of the top ten best startups for women from Elpha.

THE ROLE

We are an effective team of fully remote engineers distributed across the US and Canada. Our philosophy is to start small and then intentionally iterate to test our assumptions and learn quickly (we call this Remixing Our Work, one of our cultural values). We're iteratively building up a complex product for a highly engaged audience, getting a lot done by staying focused on the work that matters.

We work in modern JavaScript (TypeScript), React, GraphQL/Apollo, and Node/Express backed by PostgreSQL. We also use Python and other frameworks/languages where appropriate.

We believe that the future of education is hybrid - online and in person. We are looking for engineers with extensive industry experience who are excited about inspiring children to learn by building tools that allow children to access a fundamentally different learning experience. We value hands-on experience most of all.
Here are some examples of projects we have recently tackled:

• We migrated our backend from Heroku to AWS, and we are in the process of migrating the application layer.
• We built a recommendation engine for classes that best fit learners’ interests, it soon turned out to be one of the most used features of our site.
• We are in the process of fully revamping our search using ElasticSearch, Kafka, and home grown data pipelines.
• We built a new app area, dedicated just to learners. We added gift cards as a way to pay for classes; there are over 100,000 classes to choose from.

Read more about our engineering team on our blog. You can learn about our hiring process, career progression, engineering challenges, and more!

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Collaborate with a team of engineers, product managers, designers, user researchers and product analysts in building high quality software products for parents, learners, educators and partners.
• Build and maintain software solutions using technologies such as Javascript, React, Node.js, GraphQL, PostgreSQL and AWS.
• Work with others in the team to help ensure that project plans and estimates are accurate and that features delivered are on time and meet the requirements.
• Engage with the team in gathering requirements, day-to-day activities such as daily standups, sprint planning, and retros, and deploying features in production.
• Mentor other engineers on the team by sharing your expertise and knowledge.

DESIRED EXPERIENCE & SKILLS:

• 5+ years of industry experience working as an engineer
• 3+ years of experience working in modern front-end frameworks (e.g. React, Vue, etc) and Node based applications
• 3+ years of experience writing APIs with Javascript or Python
• 3+ years of experience working with relational databases such as PostgreSQL
• Proven ability in peer-to-peer collaboration via pairing, documentation
• Track record of ownership of technical projects
• Experience mentoring others in what you know

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:

• Previous experience in startups, especially edtech
• Experience building search systems using ElasticSearch
• Experience with AWS or Heroku
• Passion for learning and education
• Familiar with GraphQL and/or the challenges of scaling a web app

OUTSCHOOL CARES:

• Shared Financial Success: Competitive salaries, stock options, and investment plans that make saving for retirement easier.
• Health & Wellness: Comprehensive health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance coverage options for employees and their families. Our medical benefits include fertility and family planning coverage. We also provide employees with online access to coaching and therapy sessions through our partner, ModernHealth.
• PTO & Family Benefits: PTO and family leave enable our team to take the time that we need to recharge, relax, and spend time with family and friends.
• Fully Distributed: With a team distributed across the US and Canada, we create a remote culture through expensable weekly meals, virtual events, expensable home office setup, and internet allowance.
• Lifelong Learners: Annual budgets to self-direct our professional development as well as DEI learning. There’s also a budget for employees’ learners to take classes on Outschool!
• Community Impact: Outschool matches employee donations to established charities and has committed to donating $3M to Outschool.org non-profit programs.

Outschool is an equal opportunity employer. We view diversity as a moral imperative and competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to directly assess skills and experience.

Outschool is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to disabled veterans and applicants with physical and mental disabilities. If you need assistance due to a disability, you may contact us at Recruiting.

Must be a citizen or legal resident of the U.S. or Canada and reside in U.S. or Canada.

Modern web app: PostgresQL, Node/Express, GraphQL (Apollo), React. No native apps.

We want to focus on our customers, so we use existing third-party tools and services whenever feasible: Heroku, Redshift, Metabase, Zoom, Stripe, SQS, and more.