Product Engineer, Zen Educate
$130-190k
Salary dependent on location
Junior, Mid and Senior level
Chicago
Remote from US
More information about location
Education recruitment platform
Open for applications
Education recruitment platform
201-500 employees
B2BMarketplaceEducationRecruitment
Open for applications
$130-190k
Salary dependent on location
Junior, Mid and Senior level
Chicago
Remote from US
More information about location
201-500 employees
B2BMarketplaceEducationRecruitment
Company mission
To make a positive impact and bring about meaningful change within the education recruitment sector.
Role
Who you are
- You’ll thrive in this role if you’re someone who can build relationships quickly, take ownership of problems end-to-end and help grow a team around you
- We hire for how you think and create leverage, not what specific tools you’ve used before
- We recognise the world is not static - “what got us here, won’t get us there” - so we look for curiosity, adaptability and proactiveness as fundamental traits
- Product thinking over pure tech - start with the problem, ship quickly and iterate
- Valuing real world outcomes and shared learning over output
- What we need now is to reach the next level in how we build our platform to support this growth. That’s where you come in
What the job involves
- We are a small, but mighty team and so every engineer has the opportunity to make an outsized impact and put their stamp on what excellence looks like in practice. What do I mean by “small”? Today we have 25 Product Engineers working in small dynamic teams across the Zen product
- This role is particularly exciting because you’ll be one of Zen’s first Product Engineers in the US, where we’re enjoying rapid growth
- Our core is Ruby on Rails, React, React Native, running on Heroku + Cloudflare etc. But we have also evaluated Amazon Personalise as a candidate for our matching system and spiked out our own AI powered knowledge-base as well as investigating AI for bug triaging
- We work in a Mission-based setup where teams form around outcomes not org charts, unnecessary process or following rules
- That means you won't be stuck in a lane - you'll work across different parts of the business based on your strengths and interests. Greater performance gives greater freedom - think “Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that and just play.”
- You’ll thrive here if you want to shape problems, not just deliver tickets. Our Product Managers and Designers are partners you pull on for leverage rather than task givers who hide the users away
- We ship regularly and want to get even better at it. We are investing in this and welcome those who’ll help us start smaller and iterate faster
- Your manager is a partner, not a supervisor. You'll have a manager, but they won't be directing your every move
- Few Titles, infinite Levels. We use Levels instead of Titles to show growth in a Role. You won’t see titles like Associate, Senior, or Staff here
- Instead, you can grow continuously by getting better at your current role - e.g. working faster, safer, and more independently. Changing roles is possible too, but depends on business needs, since different roles aim for different business outcomes and typically use different skills
Application process
- Recruiter quick chat. Our recruiter will check you are human, can communicate effectively and cover some of the basics like compensation, benefits and availability
- Technical expertise. We will do a paired session with a twist - we will be the ones sharing our screen and writing the code. So come prepared to ask questions, drive progress with another engineer and dig through an ambiguous past problem in our codebase
- Product thinking. Chat to either our CPO, Dan, or a Product Manager about how you’ve demonstrated a product mindset in the past. Or if you haven’t had opportunity to do that, tell us why and what you’d do differently with us
- Role chat. This will be with me and our Senior Engineering Manager, Sean. I’ll be wanting to understand how you think and approach the role and engineering excellence, and Sean will give you some insight about what it’s like to be a Product Engineer at Zen. I’ll start by asking you the question you include in your application
- And I’ll want to dig into your answers so that this becomes more of a conversation and shared exploration than a Q&A session
- After the recruiter chat, the remaining sessions can happen in any order and as quickly as our schedules can align. You could do them all in a day if you want or spread them out a bit
- Once interviewers have shared their feedback from each session we do an internal debrief - that’s where we discuss what we are excited about you for in the role, any challenges we see and whether we think we can mitigate them at this time
- From there we will make a decision and either proceed to offer or tell you that we not offering
- We believe feedback is important, but also know not everyone wants it - so we don’t share it by default
- If you’d like feedback after the process, just let us know. Note that we’ll frame the feedback from our perspective of why we did or did not have the confidence rather than as a commentary on you
Our take
With UK schools under immense financial pressure, Zen Educate is providing a smarter approach to education staffing. Recruitment in schools often relies on inefficient and expensive practices. Zen Educate is focused on tackling the pain points in the industry and providing a way to ensure schools get the best teachers possible.
It provides an online platform as an alternative to recruitment agencies, which is the only online platform accredited by the UK's Department of Education, helping schools fill staffing needs quickly and cost-effectively. Schools using the platform have reportedly saved 20-30% on supply cover costs.
On top of this, the company has also raised significant funding to support acquisitions in the UK and the US, plus the expansion of its operations and offering.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Top investors
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Aug 2025
$17.7m
SERIES B
May 2024
$37m
SERIES B
Total funding: $103.7m
Company benefits
- Macbook and tech equipment provided
- Regular "lunch 'n' learns" every month on a range of topics
- Investment in your professional development
- Regular socials
- Ownership in the company
- Pension scheme
- Health benefits (Zen pays 75% of premiums) including vision and dental
Company values
- Commit to the mission- We commit to our mission, our customers, and our teams. We work hard because we care more
- Choose greatness over comfort- Greatness and comfort rarely coexist. We seek greatness. We understand success takes grit & determination so we seek colleagues that possess it
- Act like an owner- We all take responsibility for driving the company forward and making it a success. If we see something that could be better, we fix it. We offer stock options to all employees
- Help each other be better- Every person at Zen is someone we can respect and learn from
- A culture of trust- We hire people who are great at their jobs and we let them get on with it while being there to lend a hand when needed
- Challenge the status quo- We take action when we can see opportunities for improvement. We are in it to make our customers' lives better and to fix a broken system
- Embrace learning over perfection- We make decisions quickly and we don't hesitate. We may disagree with a decision, but we support the team and the mission by committing to it. We embrace making unknowable mistakes and learning from them
Company HQ
HQ, London
Articles
Leadership
Slava Kremerman
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a member of the Leadership Team at Nutmeg a FS startup, they also worked at Barclays and Aon.
Oren Cohen
(Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer)Ran the UK office of Optimizely, a Silicon Valley tech company. Prior to this, they worked at G-STAT and Intel.
Salary benchmarks
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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Zen Educate
- At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all
- We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work
- We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team
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