Content Associate, Computer Science (6-month contract, $100/hour, 30 hours/week)

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization on a mission to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. We already reach millions of students every month and are growing rapidly, and right now we’re hard at work helping learners address any unfinished learning that the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused. We also know that not all communities have been impacted equally by this pandemic, which makes our work focusing on providing equitable solutions to historically under-resourced communities even more important.

WE ARE DRIVEN BY OUR COMMUNITY 

Our students, teachers, and parents come from all walks of life and so do we. We are fun, diverse, quirky people that come from a variety of backgrounds. Our team includes people from academia and from high tech companies and tiny startups. We hire great people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. Valuing diversity, equity and inclusion is necessary for us to actualize our mission and truly impact the communities we serve. We believe that the best way to provide impactful education is to create a diverse team of people from different backgrounds, races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, ages, and experiences.  We’re a hardworking team that’s passionate about helping learners and teachers around the globe! We strive to be world class in investing in our people and commit to developing you as a professional. 

THE ROLE

We are looking for an experienced Computer Science educator to help us build an engaging, accessible, and innovative introductory Python course with the goal of broadening access to computer science to millions of new students.

As a Content Associate, you will work closely with our Senior Computer Science Content Creator to scale articles, exercises, and programming projects, ensuring our learners receive sufficient practice for skill mastery. You will have the opportunity to contribute from the early stages of course development on tasks like designing code tracing exercises, prototyping project starter code, and providing feedback on content items.

Our content team includes content creators from around the world who make our videos, articles, and practice questions. Today, our courses include nearly every math topic from K-14, science and humanities content covering high school and early college, test prep for several national exams, and much more! In the years ahead, we want to double down on making our courses great in classrooms and help push online education to the next level.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Work with the content team to develop high-quality Computer Science content by leveraging market research, your subject matter expertise, and your intuition for learner needs
• Prototype programming projects in Python and develop project starter code, potentially with a visual frontend component
• Design automated tests, hints, and other interventions for student programs that anticipate common mistakes and redirect students onto a productive learning path
• Scale rigorous code reading exercises that probe for common misconceptions around program execution
• Plan and write concise, clear, and friendly reference materials for Python syntax like conditionals, loops, and classes
• Learn and use our content management system to draft, revise, and publish content
• Review content items created by teammates for clarity, difficulty, and relevance

WHAT YOU BRING 

• Proven ability to create high-impact computer science learning content on schedule (minimum of 2 years)
• Empathy and strong intuition for how beginner students like to learn in computer science and insight into common misconceptions (minimum of 2 years of relevant teaching/tutoring experience)
• Ability to write highly readable, documented Python code that adheres to an established style guide
• Enthusiasm for regular collaboration, exploration, and iteration to refine content and incorporate feedback as a team
• Desire to teach at scale, engage with a broad array of learners, and question your assumptions about what's most important for learners
• Fluency with project management tools (e.g. Google docs, spreadsheets, and other tools) and a willingness to learn new tools
• A passion for education and a desire to change the world

NICE TO HAVE

• Classroom teaching experience
• Familiarity with frontend web programming

HOW TO APPLY

In addition to submitting a resume, please include a brief cover letter highlighting your most relevant experience and explaining why you’re interested in this job.

MORE ABOUT US

• Sal’s TED talk from 2011
• Sal’s TED talk from 2015
• Our team:  http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team

OUR COMPANY VALUES

Live & breathe learners

We deeply understand and empathize with our users. We leverage user insights, research, and experience to build content, products, services, and experiences that our users trust and love. Our success is defined by the success of our learners and educators.

Take a stand

As a company, we have conviction in our aspirational point of view of how education will evolve. The work we do is in service to moving towards that point of view. However, we also listen, learn and flex in the face of new data, and commit to evolving this point of view as the industry and our users evolve.

Embrace diverse perspectives

We are a diverse community. We seek out and embrace a diversity of voices, perspectives and life experiences leading to stronger, more inclusive teams and better outcomes. As individuals, we are committed to bringing up tough topics and leaning into different points of view with curiosity. We actively listen, learn and collaborate to gain a shared understanding. When a decision is made, we commit to moving forward as a united team.

Work responsibly and sustainably

We understand that achieving our audacious mission is a marathon, so we set realistic timelines and we focus on delivery that also links to the bigger picture. As a non-profit, we are supported by the generosity of donors as well as strategic partners, and understand our responsibility to our finite resources. We spend every dollar as though it were our own. We are responsible for the impact we have on the world and to each other. We ensure our team and company stay healthy and financially sustainable.

Bring out the joy

We are committed to making learning a joyful process. This informs what we build for our users and the culture we co-create with our teammates, partners and donors.

Cultivate learning mindset

We believe in the power of growth for learners and for ourselves. We constantly learn and teach to improve our offerings, ourselves, and our organization. We learn from our mistakes and aren’t afraid to fail. We don't let past failures or successes stop us from taking future bold action and achieving our goals.

Deliver wow

We insist on high standards and deliver delightful, effective end-to-end experiences that our users can rely on. We choose to focus on fewer things — each of which aligns to our ambitious vision — so we can deliver high-quality experiences that accelerate positive measurable learning with our strategic partners.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.