Quill.org’s mission is to help low-income students become strong writers.

In 2018, Fast Company recognized Quill.org as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Education Companies of 2018 alongside Duolingo, Sesame Workshop, and Coursera. As an open-source organization, we work with a large community of developers and educators to build free online literacy tools to advance our mission of helping low-income K-12 students become strong writers and critical thinkers. Building on a strong pedagogical foundation and an innovative use of machine learning and natural language processing, we aim to serve 10 million students in the next five years.

Quill currently offers six free online learning tools that bring the power of cutting-edge AI technology into the classroom: Quill Connect, Quill Lessons, Quill Diagnostic, Quill Proofreader, Quill Grammar, and Quill Reading for Evidence.

With our newest tool, Quill Reading for Evidence, Quill has expanded our offerings from writing instruction to a tool that improves both writing and reading comprehension. Quill Reading for Evidence provides students with nonfiction texts paired with AI-powered writing prompts, instead of multiple-choice questions, to enable deeper thinking. Our tool challenges students to write responses that are precise, logical, and based on textual evidence while coaching students through custom, targeted feedback on each revision to strengthen reading comprehension and writing skills. Quill is currently developing activities for ELA, social studies, and science classrooms, with a particular focus on texts that examine 21st-century issues.

The Associate Curriculum Product Manager Role:

Quill is currently searching for an associate curriculum product manager who will ensure that Quill’s curriculum team effectively builds new content and tools for teachers. As a member of the curriculum team, you will work closely with other content developers to create new content for our Evidence tool while also serving as a primary liaison between Quill’s curriculum and product teams.

Ideal candidates will care deeply about education and be excited about both content development and product management. Using the deep understanding of the content creation process that you’ll gain from engaging in content development, you will work with the product team and the executive director to build and implement new systems, processes, and internal tools that support the content development process.

You will also work closely with curriculum, product, partnerships, and the executive director to manage the development of new curriculum-based teacher- and student-facing features and tools, helping to ensure that the teacher and curriculum perspective is represented and that the product moves seamlessly through the phases of development.

Role and Responsibilities

The associate curriculum product manager’s responsibilities include:

Product Management - 60%

• Manage the development of new internal tools and the improvement of existing tools that support the curriculum team’s content development.
• Work with the executive director and Quill teams to design and build new teacher- and student-facing tools and features.
• Conduct user testing and draw on other data sources to inform and validate product decisions and requests.
• Serve as the liaison between the product team and the curriculum team.
• Work with the curriculum team to design, implement, and manage the content development process, ensuring the team has an efficient workflow that uses tools and data effectively.

Content Development - 40%

• Create activities for our recently-launched Reading for Evidence tool, which includes writing texts on a variety of topics, creating prompts, and writing feedback that students will use to revise their writing.
• Evaluate and label large amounts of student data.
• Develop original content for students that is clear, accessible, and mirrors the tone and approach of a skilled teacher.
• Give, receive, and implement feedback on writing/activities as part of a collaborative development cycle.
• Collaborate on determining style guidelines, revising existing content, creating curriculum standards alignments, and other curriculum-based projects as needed.

Competencies

The associate curriculum product manager will demonstrate the following competencies:

Product Management

• You create clear, thorough specs that set the product team up for success and efficiency in building products.
• You follow product management best practices to support Quill in building new products and improving existing products and can effectively manage products from ideation through implementation.
• You recognize data and product opportunities that can improve curriculum development, and you effectively implement processes and build products that increase the curriculum team’s efficiency and effectiveness.
• You loop in the right stakeholders at the right time in the right way and collaborate effectively across multiple teams.
• You create open lines of communication between teams to support an effective product development cycle.
• You create systems and processes to build products more effectively and you recognize when and where systems need to be improved.
• You use both technical product language and technical curriculum language to communicate cross-functionally.
• You use the functionality of Google Sheets to understand, organize, and analyze large datasets in a way that makes the data easier to interpret and share.
• You recognize trends and patterns in large datasets and can make effective recommendations based on the analysis.
• You recognize new opportunities to use data to inform your content and product work, decisions, and proposed solutions.

Content Development

• You are a strong creative and non-fiction writer.
• You have an understanding of pedagogical best practices in literacy education or are open to learning
• You have strong research skills and are able to find and evaluate the credibility of useful sources.
• You have an understanding of DEIA best practices and effectively apply them to your work.
• You have a solid understanding of technical grammar and make few errors in your writing.
• You can recognize patterns in student responses and effectively categorize them based on those patterns.
• You can write feedback for students that is clear, accessible, and mirrors the tone and approach of a skilled teacher.

Skills and Experience

This role may be a good fit for you if…

• you love to write and research
• you care deeply about education and serving students
• you love data analysis and are excited by the idea of spending a lot of time in a spreadsheet
• you enjoy building and improving digital products
• you like to collaborate but also enjoy long periods of independent work
• you are methodical and strategic
• you work well with a variety of personalities
• you have a growth mindset and value giving and receiving feedback
• you thrive in an environment with many unknowns, sudden shifts in priorities, and ambiguity
• you are comfortable giving and receiving pushback on ideas and are resilient and able to maintain positivity when you have to compromise

Successful candidates will have the following skills and experience:

• At least 1 year of product management experience or experience with product development
• Experience as a writer, teacher, tutor, or curriculum developer
• Experience with agile software development
• An understanding of agile software development best practices
• Experience with data analysis using large datasets
• Experience in or familiarity with the non-profit sector and/or a start-up environment
• Proficiency in or willingness to learn Google sheets, SQL
• Live in or near NYC and be willing to travel to NYC one per week or every two weeks for in-person meetings
• Comfortable working remotely and utilizing Google Suite, Zoom, and Slack

Join Us!

At Quill, we offer a flexible schedule, pretty spectacular benefits, and an amazing team of brilliant, supportive colleagues. We believe in a growth mindset, one of our organizational values, learning from our mistakes, and celebrating each other’s success as we work toward our collective impact!

Salary: The salary range for this position is $70,000 - $90,000.

In the interest of equity, Quill does not negotiate outside of this range; all of Quill’s salary ranges are developed through market research and a commitment to fairness and equity internally. Final salary offers will be a combination of a candidate’s skills, experience, and in consideration of current internal salaries.

Benefits: Health, Dental, Vision Insurance (Aetna), 4% 401k Matching, 33 Days Paid Holidays & Paid Days Off (with Unlimited Sick Leave), $1,500 professional development stipend annually.

Location: This is a remote/hybrid role; we are searching for someone based in or near the NYC area, who will be willing to travel once a week or once every two weeks for in-person meetings.

Typical office hours: Quill maintains a 40 hour work week with typical hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Quill also utilizes a flexible work schedule around those hours with the idea that the work gets done.

Start date: Early August. Applications received by June 15th will be prioritized.

To apply: Please email your resume to [email hidden] with the subject line “Curriculum Product Manager." In lieu of a cover letter, please include your thoughtful answers to the following questions on the last page of your resume:

• What do you think is the biggest challenge facing education today? (150-200 words)
• Describe your product management experience. What do you think you do particularly well as a product manager? (150-200 words)
• Describe a writing, research, or curriculum project you’ve worked on recently. If you could re-do that project now, what would you change, if anything, to make it stronger? (150-200 words)