Head of Engineering in San Francisco, California at AERDF

Head of Engineering

AugmentED - Transforming Education for the AI Age
Location: San Francisco or Remote

Position Summary

AugmentED, an AERDF-supported AI and education initiative, seeks a Head of Engineering to lead the creation of tools that will transform Pre-K-12 classrooms by combining the strengths of teachers and AI. You’ll shape our technical roadmap, build the foundation of our technical platform, and grow our engineering team. We’re looking for a builder with deep technical expertise, a passion for education equity, and experience delivering AI-powered products in fast-moving, creative environments.

About AugmentED

Founded in January 2025, AugmentED partners with expert educators, researchers, and engineers to reimagine education for the AI era. Our mission is to fuse the strengths of AI and human educators to improve learning outcomes, especially for underserved elementary and high school students. We believe the best way to do this is by bringing expert educators, engineers, and researchers together to co-design and test new models of teaching and learning and AI-powered tools that make these new approaches possible.

Grounded in the belief that human teachers and AI each offer unique strengths, we work to blend the best of both to make education more engaging, personalized, and relevant to the modern world. As a field-building initiative, we aim not only to develop new education approaches, AI-powered tools, and research insights, but also to codify and scale our processes that enable educators, researchers, and engineers to drive innovation collaboratively.

The Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF) is a national nonprofit that unlocks scientific breakthroughs, new inventions, and cutting-edge research to solve the most pressing teaching and learning challenges in PreK–12 education. Through our Advanced Inclusive Research and Development (R&D) model, we unite educators, caregivers, learners, scientists, and technologists to discover research-backed solutions that push the limits of what’s believed to be possible in education.We build the infrastructure, partnerships, and momentum needed to move discoveries from idea to impact, so every student can thrive in a rapidly changing world. Learn more at www.aerdf.org

• Impact: Be at the forefront of transforming education with AI.
• Leadership: Help build our technical vision, platform, and team from the ground up.
• Collaboration: Work alongside leading researchers, educators, and engineers.
• Growth: Thrive in a dynamic, mission-driven environment with opportunities for personal and professional development.

• Define and execute AugmentED’s technical vision for AI-powered education tools.
• Architect and develop a scalable, secure platform for rapid prototyping and research.
• Grow and lead a high-performing technical team of both full-time and contract engineers and data scientists.

• Lead the development of user-centered AI tools that enhance teacher-AI collaboration.
• Drive innovation by integrating education research into practical, impactful products.

• Collaborate with educators, researchers, and technology partners to build AI-powered tools and capabilities that improve education outcomes.
• Translate complex technical concepts for diverse stakeholders.
• Represent AugmentED’s technology vision in public forums.

• Strong experience as an AI/ML engineer who has architected and built AI products and services from the ground up.
• Desire to be both a hands-on individual contributor and an engineering leader.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and technically mentor both senior and junior engineers.
• Experience building across the stack (data pipelines, backend services, APIs, front-end features, mobile apps).
• Deep knowledge of AI/ML technologies and experience designing and building AI-native tech stacks.
• Strong understanding of cloud architectures, devops/MLops, deploying scalable infrastructure, and basic privacy and security practices.
• Comfort building from scratch, building end-to-end proofs of concept, and moving from prototype to production.
• Startup experience: building the foundations of technical infrastructure and teams, thriving in ambiguity, and approaching opportunities and challenges with scrapiness and creativity.

• Ed tech and/or social impact professional or volunteer experience is desirable.
• Experience delivering products in regulated environments (especially environments subject to COPPA or FERPA).

• Commitment to education equity and social impact.
• Strategic thinking balanced with hands-on technical abilities.
• Skilled communicator who can bridge technical and non-technical audiences effectively.
• Strong growth mindset and comfort with uncertainty.

• Opportunity to shape the future of education.
• Competitive salary relative to other nonprofits and comprehensive benefits.
• A mission-driven, collaborative culture.