Senior AI Engineer (24 months fixed-term)

Notice to applicants:

We have seen a rise in recruitment scams. Please note that outreach from Khan Academy recruiters will only come from the @ domain. Our team does not use Gmail or other personal accounts for contacting potential candidates. Khan Academy will never solicit money equipment fees or sensitive financial information at any stage of the hiring process. We also do not work with external recruiting agencies so outreach from headhunters presenting opportunities on behalf of Khan Academy is illegitimate. Please always check the email domain and cross-reference the position with the official Khan Academy Careers page to confirm an opening is valid.

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to deliver a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. Our proven learning platform offers free high-quality supplemental learning content and practice that cover Pre-K - 12th grade and early college core academic subjects focusing on math and science. We have over 181 million registered learners globally and are committed to improving learning outcomes for students worldwide focusing on learners in historically under-resourced communities.

OUR COMMUNITY

Our students teachers and parents come from all walks of life and so do team includes people from academia traditional/non-traditional 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 in-house with learning about ourselves and our colleagues. We strive to be world-class in investing in our people and commit to developing you as a professional.

THE ROLE

As a Senior AI Engineer youll take responsibility for integrating AI into Khan Academy product features collaborating with our Product Management Design Engineering and Content teams to develop tools and processes that ensure the consistency and quality of AI implementations.

You will:

• Collaborate with designers product managers and engineers to build AI-driven features that support education use cases
• Develop test datasets and evaluation criteria for the evaluation of AI outputs
• Measure maintain and improve AI output quality over time via experimentation with prompting scaffolding and implementation architectures

WHAT YOU BRING

• Technical Proficiency: You have experience working in software engineering data science or related technical roles. Experience with python and/or go preferred.
• Applied AI experience: You understand what generative AI models are good at and how to elicit the best performance from them. You have a knack for structured analytical thought and youre detail-oriented with high standards for quality. You understand techniquesincluding prompt chaining RAG tool-calling and fine-tuningfor guiding generative AI outputs in service of a robust and performant enterprise product.
• Strong technical project management skills: our Senior Software Engineers often lead projects that involve multiple engineers.
• Testing and quality assurance: Youre committed to a careful iterative data-driven approach for optimization innovation and continuous experimentation. You have experience developing evaluation data sets for benchmarking model fit and task-specific performance.
• Data Analysis: You know how to analyze interaction data both programmatically and manually to identify actionable insights to optimize the user experience. You have experience using data to inform strategic decisions.
• Research: You keep informed about developments in AI and take an active interest in emerging research and industry trends and you understand the implications for our products competitiveness and performance.
• Communication:Your strong communication skills help you collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams including educators developers and designers. You can explain technical concepts and create high quality documentation.
• Collaboration:You have a history of working cross-functionally to achieve shared success in organization-wide goals and projects.
• Growth mindset:Youre adaptable to a fast-paced environment and open to learning new tools and tech.
• Ethical Considerations and Bias Mitigation: Youre aware of ethical considerations in AI and machine learning especially in an educational context and are familiar with strategies for mitigating bias.
• Domain understanding: You have a solid understanding of education technology curriculum development and learning science.

Background/experience

• 5 years of transferrable technical experience (e.g. software engineering ML engineering data science)
• 2 years applying AI machine learning and natural language processing concepts to real world problems.
• 1 years experience related to education (ed tech instructional design learning science research teaching etc.)
• A high level familiarity with the architecture and operation of large language models and a nuanced understanding of their capabilities and limitations.
• Motivated by the Khan Academy mission to provide a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
• Proven cross-cultural competency skills demonstrating self-awareness awareness of other and the ability to adopt inclusive perspectives attitudes and behaviors to drive inclusion and belonging throughout the organization.

PERKS AND BENEFITS

We may be a non-profit but we reward our talented team extremely well! We offer:

• Competitive salaries
• Ample paid time off as needed Your well-being is a priority
• 8 pre-scheduled Wellness Days in 2026 occurring on a Monday or a Friday for a 3-day weekend boost
• Remote-first 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 high-impact 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 well-being 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 well-being.

The compensation band for this role is $137871 - $172339 USD annually for candidates based in the United States and $186306 - $232883 CAD annually for candidates based in 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.

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 non-profit 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 co-create 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 end-to-end 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 high-quality 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