Job description
Software Engineer for a 125+ employee (and growing) remote education non-profit providing professional learning to K-12 educators nationally
Type of Vacancy: Contract (1099 Position)
Start date: September 2025
Location: Remote
Report to: Senior Director, Innovation Studio
Compensation: $60.00-$80.00 per hour
Teaching Lab is an equal-opportunity employer committed to reflecting the diversity of the students we serve. We welcome candidates of all backgrounds to apply for this role.
WHO WE ARE
Teaching Lab is a nonprofit organization with a mission to fundamentally shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning. We envision a world where teachers and students thrive together in communities that enable life-long learning and meaningful lives. In partnership with teachers, we transform professional learning from the ground up to dramatically improve student outcomes. We also work with school, district, and state leaders to create the instructional systems necessary to support these changes. To learn more about Teaching Lab, explore our website at www.teachinglab.org.
SUMMARY OF POSITION
Teaching Lab is hiring a contract Software Engineer to build out the infrastructure and products to support AI-empowered classrooms. As a key member of our development team, you will build software that directly impacts the educational success of students across the United States. Your responsibilities will include designing and implementing the technical infrastructure that enables our products (such as Podsie, CoTeach, Mathly, and NISA) to work together as a coherent ecosystem, building shared services and data models that support instructional alignment across tools, and developing systems that ensure student progress and teacher insights flow seamlessly between platforms. You’ll contribute to the architecture decisions that allow us to scale our impact while maintaining the pedagogical coherence that sets our approach apart from typical edtech solutions. You’ll also have opportunities to contribute directly to individual product development based on team needs and your interests.
In this role, your primary project will be supporting the expansion of the Studio Classroom Project model (an AI-powered mastery-based learning approach for middle school math). The model combines self-paced progression, adaptive practice, and real-time teacher support. You’ll build the technology infrastructure that enables this model to scale from its initial pilot classroom to additional schools.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Primary responsibilities for the Software Engineer include:
The Studio Classroom Project model is a mastery-based learning approach for middle school math that combines self-paced progression, AI-powered practice, and structured teacher support. Students work through the curriculum at their own pace, receiving immediate AI-generated feedback on their mathematical thinking while teachers use real-time data to provide targeted support. The model is designed specifically for students who are significantly behind grade level, creating conditions where they can build foundational skills while engaging with grade-level content.
As a Software Engineer at Teaching Lab Studio, you will build both the technology platform that powers the Studio Classroom Project model and create infrastructure that enables deeper coordination across our product suite. We have an opportunity to amplify the impact of our tools (such as Podsie, Mathly, NISA, and CoTeach) by enabling them to share insights about student learning. Following a successful pilot in Spring 2025, we’re expanding to support all math classes at an NYC public middle school (approximately 6-8 classrooms) and need robust systems to support this growth. Your responsibilities will include:
Build Connected Learning Systems: Create infrastructure that enables our products to share valuable insights.
Develop Mastery-Based Progression Systems: Create the tracking framework that allows students to advance through content at their own pace based on demonstrated understanding.
Implement AI-Powered Feedback: Build systems that analyze student work and provide specific feedback on their mathematical reasoning, helping them understand errors and build conceptual knowledge.
Enable Instructional Coherence: Design technical solutions that create a unified learning experience where insights from one tool enhance the effectiveness of others.
Develop Teacher Support Tools: Build dashboards and monitoring systems that help teachers identify which students need intervention and when, enabling targeted small-group instruction.
Enable Rapid Iteration: Create infrastructure that supports quick testing of different approaches based on classroom observations and teacher feedback.
Support Multi-Classroom Implementation: Ensure systems can handle concurrent use across 6-8 classrooms with different teachers and hundreds of students.
Build for Future Scale: Design architecture that can expand beyond the first middle school to additional schools and districts while maintaining performance and reliability.
The immediate roadmap includes: (1) Supporting full implementation at pilot middle school site (all math classes) starting Fall 2025, (2) Building initial data sharing capabilities between Podsie and Mathly, (3) Preparing infrastructure for expansion to additional schools, and (4) Creating extensible systems that NISA and CoTeach can connect to as needed.
This role involves close collaboration with teachers and students in active classrooms. You’ll participate in classroom observations, teacher feedback sessions, and rapid development cycles based on real implementation needs. You’ll also work across product teams to create more powerful, connected learning experiences.
Your work will be split between immediate needs for the Studio Classroom Project model implementation and building foundational infrastructure that enables all Teaching Lab products to work together more effectively. This is an opportunity to work on education technology with direct classroom impact while also shaping how our products can better serve students and teachers through thoughtful integration.
ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS
- Minimum 3 years of experience building production software
- Demonstrated lifelong learner with a passion for staying up-to-date with new technologies and best practices
- Ability to learn quickly and adapt to new challenges in a fast-paced environment
- Autonomous and proactive, with a strong bias for action and a track record of taking initiative
- Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to break down complex issues into manageable tasks
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience working in cross-functional teams
- A passion for improving educational outcomes and using technology to make a meaningful impact on student learning
- Proven experience with architecture and system design, particularly in building and scaling large-scale, user-facing applications.
- Expertise in optimizing performance, scalability, and security in production environments, ensuring robust and efficient software operations.
- Strong attention to detail and a commitment to maintaining codebases that are scalable, modular, and maintainable in the long run, following best practices in software architecture and development.
- A passion for creating inclusive and accessible digital experiences that cater to diverse user needs and abilities
- Incurable builder mindset - this role is ideal for someone who loves to build (and has a track record of things they’ve built)
WORKING CONDITIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
- Ability to work a flexible schedule to support operational needs
- Ability to perform the essential project, duties and responsibilities with or without accommodation
- All team members are expected to support program/project needs which could mean that you play multiple roles at Teaching Lab (i.e., project lead, support, subject matter expert, etc.).
- Travel could be required for the role. Travel is determined based on business needs and can vary depending on partnership/contract requirements.
TEACHING LAB’S VALUES AND COMPETENCIES
- Teaching Lab seeks to fundamentally shift the paradigm of teacher professional learning by reaching more educators every year with the highest impact programming.
Teaching Lab’s ultimate goals are:
- Educators learn more than they would without us
- Students learn more than they would without us, in a way that cannot be predicted by race, gender, or family income
- Educators we serve say they love our approach, and they want to keep doing it to advance educational equity
All employees are expected to embrace Teaching Lab Values, which are necessary to develop Teaching Lab Competencies, which help us to achieve our Ultimate Goals.
- Collaboration & Responsive Service
- Resilient Solution-Finding
- Research & Learning With Humility
- Accountable Excellence
- Equity & Justice
REVIEW DATE
- This position opened on August 14, 2025 and will remain open until filled. All applications received between August 14, 2025 and August 21, 2025 will be reviewed by the hiring team. Any applications received after August 21, 2025 will be reviewed as needed.
