Director Design
Director Design
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$ 212863 - 235092
1 Vacancy
Job Description
ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY
Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to deliver a free worldclass education to anyone anywhere. Our proven learning platform offers free highquality supplemental learning content and practice that cover PreK 12th grade and early college core academic subjects focusing on math and science. We have over 155 million registered learners globally and are committed to improving learning outcomes for students worldwide focusing on learners in historically underresourced communities.
OUR COMMUNITY
Our students teachers and parents come from all walks of life and so do team includes people from academia traditional/nontraditional education big tech companies and tiny startups. We hire great people from diverse backgrounds and experiences because it makes our company value diversity equity inclusion and belonging as necessary to achieve our mission and impact the communities we know that transforming education starts inhouse with learning about ourselves and our colleagues. We strive to be worldclass in investing in our people and commit to developing you as a professional.
THE ROLE
Imagine being a teacher in Sarasota Florida with a classroom full of 6th graders who are at seven different levels of math achievement. Its the reality of so many educators and students who use Khan Academy and our team is uniquely positioned to help them when they need it most.
We have no end of fascinating challenges that can only be solved with a deep understanding of our users diligent product & UX thinking and a strong drive to make a positive impact. Some questions were working on answering right now are:
- How do we help students with learning gaps catch up to their grade level
- How do we center schools serving underresourced communities in our product design and development
- How do we reach and support more school districts so our learning experience gets used in more classrooms
- How might AI help us solve learning challenges that have been intractable until now
- and more
The best part Our work focuses on how we can use technology to solve important problems for learners and teachers: see it featured on 60 Minutes recently.
The heart of this role is building a high functioning team and working collaboratively as part of the product leadership team to drive impact by delivering amazing learning experiences across Khan Academys offerings. You will lead a team of product designers visual designers and UX researchers who are hard at work designing experiences for/with students teachers and school administrators..
Some of the things the team is working on now:
- Building an AIpowered experience that seamlessly fits into the classroom flow of students and teachers
- Designing experiences for district instructional leaders who can drive impact and are often overlooked
- Reimagining assessments in the world of conversational artificial intelligence
You will play a vital role on our Design team helping us fulfill the mission of the organization: to provide a free worldclass education to anyone anywhere. We genuinely care about people and value compassion in our everyday interactions. Youll be able to be yourself feel valued supported learn and grow no matter how experienced you are.
WHAT YOULL DO
- Reporting to our Chief Learning Officer help Khan Academy develop our offerings through design leadership.
- Lead the 20 person design team in operationalizing the product vision and strategic priorities. Together with product management and engineering leadership own of our product roadmap.
- Collaborate with our founder and other product leaders to drive the product strategy and vision which lays out our unique path for engaging teachers and learners and driving accelerated learning; working collaboratively across content product management engineering learning science and research & efficacy. Influence product priorities in ways that are rooted in a deep understanding of the evolving education landscape tech/AI opportunities and industry dynamics and policies. You will help operationalize codify and scale the pedagogical vision of our CEO / Founder Salman Khan and Chief Learning Officer Kristen DiCerbo.
- Own the design teams budget working closely with finance and leadership to forecast needs manage headcount planning and making strategic tradeoffs to maximize impact while maintaining sustainability.
- Seamlessly shift between highlevel visionary strategy and detailed ensuring alignment across all team deliverables.
- Know our customers and products inside and out. Inspire others to a similar depth of knowledge and to use customer/product insights to guide product decisions.
- Motivate and grow our worldclass design team to deliver bestinclass offerings in service to user growth and accelerated learning outcomes. Levelup design team maturity and set the bar for delivering highimpact highquality products rooted in a deep understanding of the business and customer needs. You are responsible for coaching career planning career path development and performance management of this critical function.
- Drive datainformed decisions Lead our User Experience Research team in developing insights from their work and collaborating with our analytics and efficacy teams to provide information to the organization at the time it is useful for driving decisions.
- Provide and develop a culture of feedback where designers are encouraged to iteratively improve on their work.
WHAT YOU BRING
- Deep relevant experience in technologybased product design building and shipping joyful user experiences
- Strong leader of people with proven ability to lead teams prioritizing mentorship and career growth. Record of helping growing design teams levelup in maturity through deep understanding of our users operations and design standardsframeworks
- Able to collaborate influence and quickly build trust and respect across the organization
- Exceptional communicator collaborator and facilitator who enjoys leading through influence and working across functions and levels to establish and deliver on shared goals
- Strategic thinker who can build frameworks and connect ideas
- Track record of combining customerfocus with mission alignment engaging in datainformed decision making that delivers an exceptional customer experience as well missiondriven outcomes
- Demonstrated experience supporting and enabling a user experience research team guiding the team to integrate qualitative and quantitative insights into the design process
- A positive mindset that is energized by ambiguity and bringing clarity and structure to new opportunities
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a keen eye for detail
- Motivated by the Khan Academy mission to provide a free worldclass education for anyone anywhere
- Proven crosscultural competency skills demonstrating selfawareness awareness of other and the ability to adopt inclusive perspectives attitudes and behaviors to drive inclusion and belonging throughout the organization
- Experience creating products for K12 districts and classrooms knowledge of the educational technology market and/or experience working in schools a plus
Qualities we value in ourselves and those who join our team:
- Introspective mature lowego and emotionally intelligent
- Growth mindset willingness to learn and to teach others
- Proactively seek out the people and info you need to move work forward and unblock yourself
- High comfort level working within a strong topdown product vision led by our CEO Sal Khan
- Able to balance the immediate tactical needs of helping deliver and ship features with scouting ahead for whats next
- Comfortable with evershifting priorities and ambiguous situations like youd experience in a startup
- Willing to roll your sleeves up and pitch in when a project goes offscript
- Excited about education and engaging learning experiences deeply curious about how and why people learn
PERKS AND BENEFITS
We may be a nonprofit but we reward our talented team extremely well! We offer:
- Competitive salaries
- Ample paid time off as needed Your wellbeing is a priority.
- Remotefirst culture that caters to your time zone with open flexibility as needed at times
- Generous parental leave
- An exceptional team that trusts you and gives you the freedom to do your best
- The chance to put your talents towards a deeply meaningful mission and the opportunity to work on highimpact products that are already defining the future of education
- Opportunities to connect through affinity ally and social groups
- And we offer all those other typical benefits as well: 401(k) 4 matching & comprehensive insurance including medical dental vision and life
At Khan Academy we are committed to fair and equitable compensation practices the wellbeing of our employees and our Khan community. This belief is why we have built out a robust Total Rewards package that includes competitive base salaries and extensive benefits and perks to support physical mental and financial wellbeing.
The target salary range for this position is $212863 $235092 USD / $287644 $317374 CAD. The pay range for this position is a general guideline only. The salary offered will depend on internal pay equity and the candidates relevant skills experience qualifications and job market data. Exceptional performers in this role who make an outsized contribution can make well in excess of this range. Additional incentives are provided as part of the complete total rewards package in addition to comprehensive medical and other benefits.
MORE ABOUT US
- Sals TED talk from 2011
- Sals TED talk from 2015
- Sals TED talk from 2023
- Our team: COMPANY VALUES
Live & breathe learners
We deeply understand and empathize with our users. We leverage user insights research and experience to build content products services and experiences that our users trust and love. Our success is defined by the success of our learners and educators.
Take a stand
As a company we have conviction in our aspirational point of view of how education will evolve. The work we do is in service to moving towards that point of view. However we also listen learn and flex in the face of new data and commit to evolving this point of view as the industry and our users evolve.
Embrace diverse perspectives
We are a diverse community. We seek out and embrace a diversity of voices perspectives and life experiences leading to stronger more inclusive teams and better outcomes. As individuals we are committed to bringing up tough topics and leaning into different points of view with curiosity. We actively listen learn and collaborate to gain a shared understanding. When a decision is made we commit to moving forward as a united team.
Work responsibly and sustainably
We understand that achieving our audacious mission is a marathon so we set realistic timelines and we focus on delivery that also links to the bigger picture. As a nonprofit we are supported by the generosity of donors as well as strategic partners and understand our responsibility to our finite resources. We spend every dollar as though it were our own. We are responsible for the impact we have on the world and to each other. We ensure our team and company stay healthy and financially sustainable.
Bring out the joy
We are committed to making learning a joyful process. This informs what we build for our users and the culture we cocreate with our teammates partners and donors.
Cultivate learning mindset
We believe in the power of growth for learners and for ourselves. We constantly learn and teach to improve our offerings ourselves and our organization. We learn from our mistakes and arent afraid to fail. We dont let past failures or successes stop us from taking future bold action and achieving our goals.
Deliver wow
We insist on high standards and deliver delightful effective endtoend experiences that our users can rely on. We choose to focus on fewer things each of which aligns to our ambitious vision so we can deliver highquality experiences that accelerate positive measurable learning with our strategic partners.
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race color ancestry religion sex gender gender identity or expression national origin sexual orientation age citizenship marital status disability or Veteran status. We value diversity equity and inclusion and we encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.
As part of this commitment Khan Academy will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed please contact
Required Experience:
Director
Employment Type
Full Time
