Today, 67% of students and 82% of low-income students can’t read at grade level by the end of third grade. That’s when students are supposed to go from learning to read to reading to learn. It’s America’s number one education crisis and we know how to fix it.
Ignite Reading delivers one-to-one virtual tutoring that teaches every student the foundational skills they need to become a confident, fluent reader. We pair students who need extra support with expert reading tutors who provide daily, 15-minute, Science of Reading-based instruction that rapidly closes their decoding gaps. We focus on the foundational reading skills—phonics, phonemic awareness, and sight words—kids need to master so they can decode a sentence. Students in Ignite Reading’s program achieve over 2 weeks of reading skills growth per week of instruction, and notably all students achieve the same outstanding results including students with IEPs, multilingual learners, students of color and those receiving free or reduced-price lunch.
Ignite Reading is a mission-driven public benefit corporation. We believe we can do well for our team members and shareholders while we solve one of the nation’s biggest challenges. We believe we will be more successful with a diverse team and are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Your Role
Ignite uses technology to enable the delivery of our virtual tutoring services, maximize the learning of our students, and accelerate our ability to scale. To this end, our engineering team is focused on four key technology needs:
- A tutoring logistics platform, which enables us to schedule, conduct and report on our tutoring sessions.
- A tutor workflow platform, which lets tutors know exactly what to teach each student every day.
- An extended learning application, which enables students to practice what they learn in their tutoring sessions after they return to the classroom or go home at night.
- An AI/ML implementation, which will enable us to ensure lesson fidelity as we scale.
The Lead Software Engineer for Ignite! Reading is responsible for leading an agile, cross-functional team to deliver software in support of scaling Ignite to serve at least 100,000 students in the next 5 years. This is a hands-on leadership role, you’ll be splitting your time between managing the team, setting technical direction, and writing code.
Responsibilities:
- Lead and manage a team of software engineers, providing technical guidance, mentorship, and support in their professional growth.
- Assume the Scrum Master role for an agile scrum team working in 1-week sprint cycles.
- Partner with the tutoring, academic, and operations team to create and deliver solutions that meet the needs of internal and external customers.
- Take ownership of software development projects, ensuring adherence to best practices, coding standards, and quality assurance procedures.
- Design, develop, test, and deploy software applications, APIs, and backend systems, ensuring optimal performance, security, and maintainability.
- Champion continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices to streamline development workflows and enhance deployment processes.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest software development trends, tools, and technologies, and incorporate relevant innovations into the company's projects.
- Identify and resolve technical challenges, bugs, and performance bottlenecks through effective troubleshooting and debugging techniques.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to contribute to architectural decisions, system design, and technology evaluations.
- Foster a collaborative and positive work environment that encourages creativity, innovation, and knowledge sharing among team members.
Competencies:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Exceptional organizational, project management and time management skills
- Ability to be self-managing and flexible while working in a remote environment
- Ability to roll up your sleeves and do whatever it takes to get the job done while balancing long-term projects with the urgency of immediate demands in a fast-paced start-up environment.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
- Proven experience (7+ years) in software development with a strong background in designing and building complex web applications or software systems.
- Previous experience in a leadership role, managing and guiding a team of software engineers.
- In-depth understanding of modern web development technologies, OOP languages, and relational databases. Our first product has been built using Ruby on Rails 7, React JS, and Postgres all deployed to Heroku. Candidates with experience in a similar web tech stack (Python/Django, JavaScript/Node, Java/Spring, etc.) are encouraged to apply.
- Deep understanding of software development methodologies, design patterns, and best practices.
- Experience (or interest) working with LLMs and/or AI APIs is a plus
- Familiarity with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) is a strong advantage.
- Experience at early stage startups is a plus
Additional Details:
- At Ignite! Reading, we believe in building and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace environment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer where all applicants are considered for employment without attention to color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
- We are a virtual organization with headquarters in the California Bay Area.
- We offer competitive compensation, equity, and generous benefits packages.
Apply:
- Please apply via our website with a resume and cover letter.
We believe in building and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace environment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer where all applicants are considered for employment without attention to color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don't apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria – unlike majority candidates meeting significantly fewer requirements. We strongly encourage you to apply if you’re interested!
We are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are a virtual organization with headquarters in the California Bay Area.
Top Skills
What We Do
When kids learn to read on time their opportunities in school and life improve profoundly. If a child cannot read by the time they are in third grade, they are four times less likely to graduate high school.* In 2022, only 33% of U.S. fourth graders and 31% of eighth graders were reading at grade level (National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment scores). Ignite Reading is on a mission to fix this.
Ignite Reading delivers one-to-one virtual tutoring that teaches K-8th graders the foundational skills they need to become confident, independent readers. We pair developing readers with expert reading tutors who provide daily, 15-minute, Science of Reading-based instruction that rapidly closes decoding gaps. Students across all demographics achieve the same outstanding results–an average of 2.4 weeks of reading skills growth per week of instruction–including students with IEPs, multilingual learners, students of color and those receiving free or reduced-price lunch. By ensuring all students master the foundational skills to fluently read any word, Ignite Reading empowers them to move forward and unlock everything school and life have to offer.
"Ignite Reading is one of the most, if not the most, successful interventions we have implemented in our district. The student results and program design are indisputable."
- Claudia Salvestrin, Assistant Superintendent, Red Bluff Union Elementary School District, CA
