Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that brings together engaging, accessible content with integrated assessments and insights to supercharge engagement and learning in every subject. We are dedicated to our mission to unlock the written word for everyone. Four years since our launch, Newsela is already in 75% of schools, across all 50 U.S. states, in addition to being in over 180 countries. The result has been more engaged readers—and engaged readers are better learners.

Engineers at Newsela work on big problems in digital instructional content—from building the infrastructure necessary to handle tens of millions of users to solving novel problems in text complexity and personalization. The VP of Application Development is responsible for building Newsela’s user-facing products. This role is focused on building effective development teams that solve concrete problems for teachers, students, and the business. The VP is a leader inside of the technology team and a key strategic voice in the company at large.

Newsela believes that code is communication and we care deeply about the relationships developers have with each other and the company as a whole. Developers work closely with product managers, designers, and domain experts to build software that’s beautiful and useful. If you love working on technology that makes a real difference, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Oversee a majority of the developers at Newsela. Create accountability for good engineering practices, cultivate your team members’ careers, and maintain developer focus on the most important work.
• Significantly grow Newsela’s engineering team by managing hiring and retention efforts. Help define and evangelize Newsela’s engineering culture inside and outside of the company.
• Be a key contributor to Newsela’s product strategy. Work closely with Newsela’ Product leadership to support their development goals and maintain a stable and compelling engineering roadmap.
• Report to the CTO as part of the technology leadership team, representing all of application development. Contribute to Newsela’s innovative technical work in linguistics, content management, and pedagogy.

The Ideal Candidate

• At least 5 years of engineering management experience, some of which was at a growing technology company.
• At least 8 years of professional software development experience.
• Demonstrated successes managing organizational change, building positive engineering culture, and fostering effective teams.
• Demonstrated use of innovative technologies to solve complex business problems.
• Superb written and verbal communication skills.

Some Plusses

• Up-to-date familiarity with front-end web development tools and practice.
• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline.
• Expertise in any of the following areas: education, linguistics, publishing, or journalism.

Newsela is strongly committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all individuals. Newsela will make all employment decisions without unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other status protected by law.