Architect the Future of Personalized Learning

The Mission: Every Student Deserves to Learn Their Way

At Subject, we believe the current education system is failing millions of students - not because teachers don't care, but because the technology doesn't exist to truly personalize learning at scale. We're building the AI infrastructure that will finally make personalized education accessible to every student, regardless of their background, learning style, or circumstances.

We’re on a mission to deliver premium, video-based education to every learner. Backed by Owl Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Latitude Ventures, and the CEOs of WHOOP, Cameo, and Aurora Solar, we create cinematic, short-form content paired with a robust learning platform that serves thousands of students every day.

The Impact: Your Code Will Transform How 5 Million Students Learn

As our Staff Backend Engineer, you'll architect the AI systems that make personalized learning possible at massive scale. This isn't about building another LMS or grading automation tool. This is about creating technology that understands how each student learns best and adapts instantly to help them succeed.

What You'll Build:

Revolutionary AI Learning Infrastructure

• Design adaptive learning systems that process 100M+ learning interactions daily, understanding patterns that human teachers might miss
• Build AI orchestration that can simultaneously personalize education for millions while maintaining <0.1% error rates
• Create intelligent content delivery systems that know exactly when a student needs encouragement, a different explanation, or a challenge
• Develop AI safety and governance protocols that protect student data while enabling breakthrough personalization
• Architect systems that learn from every interaction, making education better for the next student

Breakthrough Educational Technology

• Build real-time assessment engines that understand not just what students know, but how they think
• Create knowledge graph systems that connect concepts across subjects in ways students intuitively understand
• Design multi-modal learning platforms that adapt to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners
• Develop AI tutoring systems that provide instant, personalized feedback at the moment of confusion
• Architect infrastructure handling billions of learning events while maintaining five-9s reliability

Platform for Educational Equity

• Build systems that work on any device, any connection speed, ensuring no student is left behind
• Create offline-first architectures that bring world-class education to underserved communities
• Design cost-optimization strategies that make premium education affordable for all schools
• Develop accessibility features that make learning possible for students with diverse abilities
• Build bridges between traditional and digital education, helping teachers become superhuman

Innovation Through Collaboration

• Partner with education researchers to translate pedagogy into scalable technology
• Work directly with teachers to understand classroom realities and build solutions that actually work
• Collaborate with students to ensure our technology speaks their language
• Contribute to open-source educational tools that lift the entire industry
• Publish research that advances the field of AI in education

The Technical Challenge:

Building personalized education at scale requires solving some of the hardest problems in computer science:

Technical Requirements

• 7+ years of backend engineering excellence, with 3+ years at Staff/Principal level solving complex distributed systems challenges
• Deep Node.js expertise - You've built production systems that push the runtime to its limits
• Polyglot architecture experience - Production systems in Go, Rust, Elixir/Erlang, or modern Java. You know when Node isn't enough and can architect multi-language solutions for optimal performance
• PostgreSQL mastery - Complex schema design, query optimization, and scaling strategies for educational data
• AI/ML implementation - You've shipped LLMs and ML models to production, understanding both the possibilities and limitations
• Distributed systems architecture - Experience with systems serving millions of concurrent users with real-time requirements
• Cloud-native development (GCP preferred) - Microservices, event-driven architectures, and container orchestration at scale

The Engineering Mindset We Need

• Mission-First Engineering: Every technical decision is evaluated through the lens of student impact
• Scalable Excellence: Build systems that work for 10 students and 10 million students
• Pedagogical Curiosity: Deep interest in how people learn and how technology can enhance learning
• Data-Driven Iteration: Obsession with measuring and improving student outcomes
• Collaborative Innovation: Belief that the best solutions come from diverse perspectives
• Responsible AI Development: Commitment to ethical AI that empowers rather than replaces teachers

Why This Role Matters More Than Most

The Opportunity

• Direct Impact: Your code will directly influence the educational outcomes of 5 million students in the next two years
• Generational Change: Build the platform that makes traditional one-size-fits-all education obsolete
• Technical Innovation: Solve problems at the intersection of AI, education, and distributed systems that haven't been solved before
• Market Leadership: Help establish Subject as the definitive AI-powered education platform
• Meaningful Legacy: Build technology that outlasts your tenure and defines how a generation learns

The Team

You'll work alongside:

• Former founders who've built and scaled EdTech companies
• Seasoned tech leaders who chose mission over comfort
• Self-taught AI practitioners who ship production ML systems that actually work
• Educators who understand the classroom reality
• A leadership team that's deeply committed to educational equity

The Resources

• Funding: Series A backed by top-tier investors who understand the long-term vision
• Data: Access to rich educational datasets that enable real AI innovation
• Partnerships: Direct relationships with schools and districts for rapid iteration
• Freedom: Autonomy to architect solutions without bureaucratic overhead
• Support: A team that celebrates bold attempts and learns from failures

What Success Looks Like

In 3 Months:

• Architected and shipped a major AI feature improving student engagement by 30%+
• Established new engineering practices that accelerate the entire team
• Identified and solved critical scalability bottlenecks
• Became the go-to expert for AI/system architecture decisions

In 6 Months:

• Led the development of breakthrough educational AI features used by 500K+ students
• Reduced infrastructure costs by 40% while improving performance
• Built systems handling 50M+ daily requests with sub-100ms latency
• Recruited and mentored 2-3 exceptional engineers

In 12 Months:

• Architected platform capabilities that differentiate Subject from any competitor
• Published research or open-source contributions advancing EdTech
• Established Subject as a technical leader in AI-powered education
• Generated $10M+ in value through technical innovation

The Commitment We're Looking For

This role requires exceptional dedication - not because we demand it, but because the mission deserves it. We're looking for someone who:

• Sees transforming education as their life's work, not just their next job
• Thrives in high-intensity environments where every day matters
• Values impact over comfort, choosing harder problems because they matter more
• Believes in collaborative excellence - making everyone around them better
• Has the stamina for a marathon sprint - building for the long term at startup speed

We work primarily from our office because education is a human endeavor, and the best solutions come from human collaboration. We stay connected because students don't stop learning on weekends. We push ourselves because millions of students deserve our best effort.

Compensation & Benefits

We offer competitive compensation that reflects both the importance of this role and the caliber of talent we seek:

• Base Salary: $275K - $350K based on experience and impact potential
• Equity: Significant ownership stake that grows with your impact - the more value you create, the more you own
• Mission Multipliers: Performance bonuses tied to student outcome improvements
• Growth Investment: Conference budgets, learning resources, and patent filing support
• Health & Performance: Comprehensive health coverage, gym membership, daily meals
• Location: Los Angeles, CA or Austin, TX (in-office collaboration)

How to Apply: Show Us Your Vision

We want to see both your technical excellence and your educational vision:

1. Technical Achievement: Describe a distributed system you've built that handled millions of users. Include architecture decisions and performance metrics.
2. Polyglot Mastery: Share an example where you chose different languages for different components of a system, with the reasoning and results.
3. Educational Vision: In 500 words or less, describe how AI could transform one specific aspect of education that current technology hasn't solved.
4. Impact Story: Tell us about a time your technical work directly improved people's lives at scale.
5. Learning Philosophy: Share your thoughts on how people learn best and how technology can enhance (not replace) human connection in education.

Join Us in Building Education That Actually Works

If you're reading this and feeling excited about the technical challenges and the mission impact, you might be exactly who we're looking for. We're not just building another startup - we're building the foundation for how humanity will learn for the next century.

This is a rare opportunity to apply your technical expertise to one of society's most important challenges. To build systems that don't just scale, but scale with purpose. To write code that doesn't just perform, but transforms lives.

Ready to build the future of education?