Chief Technology Officer

We refuse to be ordinary, so neither is this job description! At the core of our work is our belief that teachers hold the power to move educational outcomes forward. We want technical experts who not only care deeply about solving complex problems, but also about impact. It is our responsibility to include the people impacted during model design, consider human engagement risks, and protect our students. So if you’re down to push on how ML models can improve equity in education, let’s talk! 

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What we’re looking for and why we need you!

We are seeking a highly skilled CTO in our pursuit of bringing computer vision-language-enabled solutions to education. Too many AI solutions in education require students to sit on Chromebooks using a janky UX to interact with an AI chatbot. Not for our kids, thank you – to us, that’s a dystopia. We envision a world where students challenge each other through discussion, try hard at hard problems, and build core knowledge. For AI to have a role in the world we envision, the AI needs to be able to diagnose student work using optical sensors, freeing students from the constraints of the keyboard. 

There’s no more natural gauge of whether you understand a math problem than working it out with nothing more than a question and a pencil. We’re working on a 3-year work study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to collect a large sample of handwritten student work, hire math content experts to diagnose the work, and train an AI to replicate the expert diagnosis. We are looking for someone who can advance the state of the art in multi-modal AI to build models capable of making the nuanced distinction between correct and partially correct work that can handle image inputs that combine numbers, figures, and text. It’s a hard problem filled with exciting opportunities to push the state of the art. The goal is to build delightful products and experiences for millions of students, teachers, and families. 

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Responsibilities

Technical Strategy and Leadership:

• Develop and communicate the company's overall technology vision and strategy.
• Collaborate with the executive team to align technology initiatives with business goals.
• Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry trends, evaluating their potential impact on the company's products and services.
• Recruit, mentor, and develop technical talent, providing guidance and support for career growth.

Technology Roadmap and Product Development:

• Lead the planning, development, and execution of the technology roadmap, ensuring it supports the company's strategic objectives.
• Oversee the design, development, and maintenance of scalable and secure software applications, platforms, and systems.
• Drive the innovation of new products and features, ensuring they are aligned with market needs and customer expectations.

Technical Team Management:

• Build and lead a high-performing technology team, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Establish and enforce best practices, coding standards, and development methodologies.

Technical Operations and Infrastructure:

• Oversee the management of the company's technical infrastructure, including servers, networks, and cloud-based services.
• Ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of our systems and platforms.
• Monitor and optimize performance, implementing appropriate tools and processes to measure and improve system efficiency.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Management:

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including product management, sales, and marketing, to drive successful product launches and customer engagements.
• Engage with key stakeholders, such as investors and partners, to provide technical insights and support business development initiatives.

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Desired skills & qualifications

• PhD degree in Computer Science, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 7+ years of experience in building mission-critical applications using object-oriented languages like Python
• 2+ years of experience building Machine Learning (ML) solutions
• Strong knowledge of deep learning frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, etc.
• Strong experience in data structures, algorithms, and software design

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Preferred qualifications:

• Research or technical background in one or more of the following: Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Vision-Language, Image Understanding, Large Pre-trained Models, Large Language Models, Multi-Modal AI 
• Publication(s) in top-tier conferences or journals in related fields (e.g., CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, etc.).
• Experience with Language and Vision-Language models, such as LLaMA, BLIP, FLAN, Falcon, LLaVA, etc.  
• Understanding of the auxiliary practical concerns in production ML systems

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The perks

• The full salary range for this position is $195,550 - $300,300 annually
• Anyone with full-time teaching experience in the US K-12 system will receive a $15,000 signing bonus
• Additional benefits include equity, 401k, and healthcare 
• Flexible, remote working environment
• Culture: We are a small, yet agile and mighty team. If you are searching for a close-knit team of coworkers driven by educational equity and tech accessibility in schools, we hope that you reach out!

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Who we are

Here at EdLight, our mission is to make great teaching easy. We are an early-stage startup team of lifelong educators who come together each day to help teachers gain insight from handwritten student work in real-time, while ensuring that the work that students do each day is seen and valued.

We are a digital platform that allows teachers to score, sort, and share their students’ handwritten work from any device, anywhere. This bolsters communication and collaboration across all educational stakeholders including teachers, students, parents, coaches, and leadership teams.

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Our application process

If you are interested in this role, please complete our application form (linked here). Selected candidates will be invited to complete a short task to showcase their expertise.