Early Childhood Specialist $100,000 USD/year Pay is set based on global value, not the local market.
Most roles = hourly rate x 40 hrs x 50 weeks
Description
- $100,000/year W2 salary with weekly pay; health, dental, and vision benefits begin day one
- On-site at an Alpha campus located in Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX; or Park City (Salt Lake City), UT (relocation assistance available)
You do not instruct. You inspire.
The most supportive action you can take for a six-year-old who reached 99% of their target is to insist it is not finished. If that expectation unsettles you, this role is not for you. If it energizes you because maintaining high standards is your way of demonstrating belief in a kindergartener's potential, continue reading.
At Alpha, students in grades K-3 complete academic learning through AI-powered applications over two hours each day. As a Guide, you lead a single cohort band — K-1 (Kindergarten–1st grade) or 2-3 (2nd–3rd grade) — and adjust your approach, tempo, and workshops to suit that band. No traditional lessons. No printed exercises. Half of your day is spent facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering public speaking, concentration, and peer feedback. These workshops serve as frameworks, not fixed scripts — top performers in this role customize them for their cohort and create new ones when gaps arise. The remaining half involves sitting with students individually or in small clusters, analyzing Coachbot data, and guiding each child to reach 100% of their weekly app targets. With four- to six-year-olds, energy and playfulness are not supplementary; they are the means by which you sustain attention long enough to teach anything. Warmth establishes trust and earns you the authority to challenge. Challenging them signals your confidence in their ability.
A successful quarter means every student completes their weekly app targets, passes the Test2Pass for every life-skills workshop, and 90%+ report they love you. Falling short on any of these three means the role is not being fulfilled. In your first year, you internalize the system; as you demonstrate the ability to uphold expectations, advancement to Lead Guide becomes possible, where you mentor new hires while continuing direct work with students.
If you prefer conventional classroom teaching, need a pre-made curriculum, or see warmth and rigor as incompatible, this is not the right fit. If you have thrived as an early-elementary teacher who excelled at circle time, a camp counselor for young children, a youth sports coach, a children's theater performer, or anyone capable of captivating a room of kindergarteners through voice, play, and energy, the final step before an offer is a shadow day on campus coaching actual Alpha students. If that prospect excites you most, apply now.
What you will be doing
- Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for groups of 10-15 K-3 students covering public speaking, concentration, feedback, and other enduring competencies
- Conducting daily individual and small-group coaching sessions that maintain student progress toward weekly app targets, leveraging Coachbot analytics, Alpha's incentive structures (school currency, leaderboards), and the rapport you have established with each child
- Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha's mastery-based evaluation) for each life skill, and supporting students who do not pass until mastery is achieved
- Engaging kindergarteners through songs, narratives, physical activity, and humor, while simultaneously holding second and third graders accountable to concrete, measurable expectations
- Serving as the warm adult children are excited to see at drop-off AND the adult who will not permit them to settle for less
What you will NOT be doing
- Delivering lectures from the board; academic content is delivered through the apps, not by you
- Creating curriculum from the ground up; Alpha supplies the system and you animate it
- Passively monitoring kids at screens; motivation in this role is active, individualized, and continuous
- Reducing a weekly target so a child can meet it; when a student falls behind, the solution is supporting the student, not adjusting the goal
- Evaluating homework, conducting standardized test preparation, or handling parent outreach; Campus Leads manage parent-facing responsibilities, and the rest do not exist in this model
Key responsibilities
Ensure every student in your K-3 cohort meets their weekly learning targets, achieves mastery of each life skill, and finishes the year reporting they loved you.
Candidate requirements
- Willing to work on-site at an Alpha campus in Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX; or Park City (Salt Lake City), UT (relocation assistance provided)
- Bachelor's degree in any field
- At least 3 years of direct experience working with children ages 4 to 9 (early-elementary teaching, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program leadership)
- A concrete example you can articulate of motivating a young child toward a challenging goal: the goal itself, your actions, and the result
- Able to participate in a paid training program at our Austin, TX campus
- Openness to allowing AI to manage instructional content while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills coaching
- Legally authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship
Nice to have
- Background in youth sports coaching, children's theater, camp leadership, Montessori/progressive early education, or after-school programs where you held direct responsibility for motivating young children toward defined goals
- Personal record of high achievement (academic, athletic, or professional), demonstrating that holding others to rigorous standards is natural for you, not performative
- Natural performer's energy with young children — the capacity to command a room of kindergarteners through voice, playfulness, and physicality
- Demonstrated success in transforming shy or reluctant young children into confident, engaged participants
You will be working for
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