Apply

Description

Important note about this position: This role is built for engineering leaders — people whose careers have been defined by writing code, leading engineers, and shipping software products. If your background is primarily in IT management, systems administration, network infrastructure, or cybersecurity, this role is not the right fit, even though those functions will report to the Chief Technology Officer.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are seeking a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who is, first and foremost, a software engineering leader, for our mission-driven edtech organization. Your career has been built primarily on writing code, leading engineers, and shipping SaaS software products — not managing corporate IT, networks, or security programs. You have led teams that release software frequently and iteratively, worked in close partnership with a product lead, and have actively embraced AI/LLM tooling both as a development workflow accelerator and as a source of product features.

Experience in educational or training software — sold to consumers, schools, or institutions — is strongly preferred. You understand the stakes of software that teachers and students depend on every day, and you know how to build engineering cultures that deliver reliably without sacrificing quality or velocity.

Reporting directly to the President, the CTO will drive the technical execution, scalability, and evolution of Teach to One Roadmaps — a sophisticated SaaS platform built on microservices, GraphQL, a component-based frontend, and extensive integrations with external systems, hosted on AWS and deployed through a robust CI/CD pipeline. The engineering organization includes a mix of full-time employees and offshore contractors across multiple time zones.

WHAT THIS ROLE DOES

Engineering Leadership & Culture

• Set and execute engineering strategy aligned with company goals, product vision, and roadmap.
• Lead, mentor, and manage four director-level direct reports across engineering, quality assurance, DevOps, and IT/Cybersecurity.
• Build and sustain a high-performing, remote-first engineering culture grounded in our core values, with a strong emphasis on ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Establish clear technical standards, architectural principles, and best practices across frontend, backend, data, QA, and infrastructure teams.
• Attract, retain, and develop top tech talent; design team structures, career paths, and succession plans for both employees and contractors.

Product & Engineering Partnership

• This role partners closely and continuously with the Head of Product. The CTO and product lead are expected to function as genuine peers — jointly owning the balance between feature velocity, technical sustainability, and quality.
• Translate product vision and roadmap into executable engineering plans with clear milestones and trade-off decisions.
• Maintain a shared understanding of technical debt, architectural risk, and platform investment needs with product leadership.
• Ensure engineering decisions proactively enable — rather than constrain — future product possibilities.
• Champion quality-first development practices and partner with product on acceptance criteria, release readiness, and user impact.

AI-Driven Engineering & Product Features

• AI adoption is a priority — both as a development productivity lever and as a source of product innovation. The CTO will lead by example here.
• Drive adoption of AI-assisted development workflows — including AI coding tools, automated testing, and code review — to measurably improve team velocity and quality.
• Lead the evaluation, design, and delivery of AI/LLM-enabled product features that directly improve outcomes for teachers and students.
• Stay current on emerging AI/ML capabilities and assess their applicability to both our platform architecture and pedagogical goals.
• Establish responsible AI practices, including appropriate governance, bias awareness, and data privacy considerations.

Technology & Architecture

• Provide executive-level technical leadership for a fullstack platform: modern frontend applications and a distributed, microservices-based backend using GraphQL and RESTful APIs.
• Oversee system architecture decisions to ensure scalability, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Guide the evolution of integrations with external systems (learning platforms, data providers, identity systems).
• Provide technical oversight and strategic direction for the company’s data warehouse, including schema design and ETL/ELT pipelines.

Delivery & Operational Excellence

• Drive a culture of frequent, reliable software delivery. Reduce cycle time and deployment friction through CI/CD improvements, modern tooling, and elimination of knowledge silos.
• Coordinate engineering, DevOps, and QA teams to explicitly minimize toil and increase deployment frequency.
• Partner with DevOps to ensure strong cloud infrastructure practices on AWS, including cost optimization, observability, reliability, and disaster recovery.

Data & Analytics Enablement

• Lead the technical execution of the data warehouse and BI initiative, ensuring engineering teams deliver scalable, well-modeled, and maintainable data assets.
• Champion data-informed decision-making within engineering and across product and program success teams.
• Balance product engineering priorities with data platform investments.

Vendor, Contractor & Budget Management

• Own the technology budget: headcount planning, contractor spend, tooling, cloud infrastructure, and vendor costs.
• Establish and execute a contracting and vendor strategy that balances cost efficiency, quality, and long-term sustainability.
• Oversee relationships with offshore development partners, ensuring clear expectations, performance accountability, and alignment with engineering standards.

IT, Cybersecurity & Corporate Technology

• These functions report to the CTO but are managed primarily by functional directors, not the CTO directly. The CTO provides executive oversight and ensures these areas are appropriately resourced and governed.
• Provide executive oversight for data privacy, cybersecurity, and SOC 2 Type II compliance.
• Ensure corporate IT support — including software, hardware, and user account management — runs effectively through the Director of IT/Cybersecurity.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Required Experience

• Our core values: You embody our core values: Prioritize People, Initiate and Innovate, Lifelong Learning, Creative Collaboration, Purposeful Partnerships and Considered Confidence.
• Software engineering background — not IT: Your career has been spent primarily as a software engineer and engineering leader, building and shipping SaaS products. Experience limited to IT management, infrastructure, or cybersecurity is not sufficient for this role.
• EdTech or learning software experience: You have built or led engineering for educational or training software sold to consumers, schools, districts, or institutions. You understand the product nuances of software used in classrooms.
• Agile delivery & high release frequency: You have led teams that ship frequently — in weeks, not quarters — and have actively invested in CI/CD, cycle time reduction, and developer productivity.
• Product partnership: You have worked in genuine, sustained partnership with a product lead or Head of Product, jointly managing the speed/quality/sustainability trade-off.
• AI/LLM fluency: You actively use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, AI code review, Claude) and have shipped AI/LLM-enabled features into production. This is not optional.
• Engineering leadership depth: 10+ years of progressive engineering experience, including significant leadership at the director or VP level, managing engineering leaders, and individual contributor who has written production code and can engage deeply in technical design conversations.
• Distributed team experience: Track record leading remote-first engineering teams, including offshore or outsourced contributors across time zones.
• K–12 or higher education technology: Direct experience with edtech products used in schools, districts, or by students and families.
• Technical stack alignment: Familiarity with microservices, GraphQL/REST APIs, AWS, and modern CI/CD tooling.
• Data platform experience: Familiarity with data warehousing concepts, ETL/ELT pipelines, and BI tools.
• Executive communication: You are skillful at translating complex technical topics into clear, concise communication for the board, executive leadership, and external stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• Data privacy & compliance: Familiarity with FERPA, COPPA, or comparable education data privacy requirements.
• Scaling engineering organizations: Experience growing engineering teams and platforms through periods of significant change or growth.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Delegation: Pushes decision-making to the lowest appropriate level; provides clear expectations, authority, and resources.
• Judgment / Decision Making: Makes timely, well-reasoned decisions that reflect a clear understanding of tradeoffs.
• Conceptual Ability: Handles abstract, complex challenges with mental agility alongside concrete execution.
• Flexibility / Adaptability: Adjusts to changing needs quickly and thoughtfully; compromises effectively when needed.
• Information Sharing: Actively keeps the organization informed of technical developments, risks, and progress.
• Respectful Collaboration: Contributes perspective and expertise while demonstrating genuine consideration for others’ views and contributions.

ROLE CLASSIFICATION AND BENEFITS

This role is remote, full-time, and includes benefits such as rich medical, dental, and vision insurance, 41 paid days off per year (prorated for the period in which you work), paid parental leave, a professional development budget, and a quarterly cell phone subsidy.

The hiring salary range for this role is $183,000–$230,00 and will be commensurate with experience. We have a hiring salary range of $204,000–$256,000 for specific higher cost-of-labor locations, which include New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco/Oakland, San Jose, Seattle, Washington DC, and their metro areas.

New Classrooms is a fully remote organization. All employees work from home and occasionally travel for in-person gatherings and offsites.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, nationality, or sex.

ABOUT NEW CLASSROOMS

New Classrooms is a national nonprofit organization focused on reimagining math education for all students. We are a fully remote team of educators, technologists, and advocates committed to the idea that all students deserve an educational pathway that meets them where they are and gets them to where they need to be. We partner with schools, districts, and states to support the implementation of our personalized, competency-based math solution, Teach to One Roadmaps, while also advocating for shifts across the K–12 landscape to create the conditions for more student-centered learning.

Salary Description

$183,000 - $256,000