Design Manager, Khan Academy
Districts and Assessments
$152-165k
$190k-$206k CAN
Nonprofit online education platform
Job no longer available
Nonprofit online education platform
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$152-165k
$190k-$206k CAN
1001+ employees
Company mission
Khan Academy's mission is to provide a free, world‑class education for anyone, anywhere.
Role
Who you are
- You have 6+ years of relevant experience as an in-house individual contributor, and at least 1 year of experience as a people manager of product/UX designers
- You are outstanding across interaction design, prototyping, and information architecture, with a good eye for visual hierarchy, balance, space, etc
- You have experience with service design, e.g. service blueprints and ideal journey maps
- You have the ability to juggle ambiguous and broad problems/opportunities along with smaller well-defined projects
- You have exceptional verbal and written communication skills for technical and non-technical partners, internally and externally
- You are comfortable in ambiguous situations and dynamic environments that run similar to a startup, where you regularly interact with and gather feedback from Senior Leadership
- You are scrappy, have a bias toward action, and love moving fast
- You know how to build strong relationships cross-functionally and bring people into the conversation when their input and buy-in is crucial
- You bring a lean approach to product design and regularly ask yourself: how do we learn quickly and ship regularly? What’s the most concise experience we can deliver that still provides value?
- Bonus if you have experience with growth-stage products or designing for growth
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Design Manager to join District Experience, Reporting & Insights, and Assessments
- The heart of this role is driving the design strategies and solutions for our suite of Khan Academy Districts products – not just the design process itself, but how we’re meeting business objectives and creating a competitive advantage in the market
- Someone with a background working in early-stage startups, influencing service design, and wearing multiple hats will feel right at home
- As a people manager, you’ll lead a small team of senior, high-performing designers who create solutions and experiences that enable our Districts partners to implement Khan Academy successfully in their schools, unlocking improvements to learning outcomes for students
- You will act as a force multiplier for your peers, reports, and cross-functional teams, applying your expertise as you guide and coach folks across several different active projects
- You will also use your strong process and project management skills to improve how Design contributes within their product teams and positively impacts business objectives
- As one of the Khan Academy Districts leads, you will develop a deep understanding of the historically under-resourced districts and communities we serve, analyze and synthesize what we know about our users and the market, and generate hypotheses around creating value for school districts, with District Administrators as your primary stakeholder
- We have no end of fascinating challenges that can only be solved with a deep empathy for our users, diligent product & UX thinking, and a strong drive to make a positive impact
- Lead and support a group of experienced, high-performing product and visual designers in their work, collaborations, and careers
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Content, Data, Marketing and other departments to shape an inspiring vision and strategy for the future of our Khan Academy Districts experience
- Leverage your previous B2B and/or B2B2C experience to navigate the tension between customer needs and what’s possible, thinking on your feet and looking for opportunities to do a little work in order to get customer requests met
- Identify opportunities to design useful generative AI features that support the JTBDs of District Administrators and School Leaders, particularly around assessment and reporting
- Set a standard of operational excellence by driving the design side of projects effectively through project management, clear communication, and a focus on outcomes
- Actively participate in design critiques and performance reviews, both in delivering feedback to teammates to strengthen their work, but also in soliciting feedback on your own work
- Cultivate a growth mindset (another one of our values) by contributing to design best practices for organizational needs such as design critique, integrating our brand into the product, modeling emotional maturity and continuous feedback, etc
- Serve on the Design Leads advisory board, helping the Design Director provide professional development through Creative Gym (our team growth program), facilitate team meetings, interview and hire, onboard and offboard employees, etc
- Write about, present, and share what you have learned, both internally and with the wider Design community via our blog and industry events
Application process
- Submitting a portfolio with your application is required - We're looking for a portfolio that demonstrates exceptional design solutions that are aligned to business objectives within tight timeframes and constraints
Our take
Khan Academy is a non-profit that provides free online education materials, including teacher tools, instruction videos, and practice exercises to support users of all ages. It has over 10 million users a month and covers subjects all the way up to college level.
With nearly a quarter of American adults unable to use mathematics in daily life, Khan Academy’s interactive quizzes, instructional videos, and teacher tools are timely. Khan Academy started life as a series of educational YouTube videos, before building a full-scale platform after receiving an influx of donations from Silicon Valley philanthropists. This background has led it to embrace rather than reject the educational possibilities of new tech such as AI, with the founder regarding traditional institutions' banning of tools like ChatGPT as a mistake.
The company offers its tools completely for free, instead of relying on donations and volunteers. A key focus is tackling wealth inequality in education. A partnership with the College Board (who produce entrance examinations for higher education) has made access to SAT prep materials free for millions. 2024 saw a partnership with Microsoft for Khan Academy's Khanmigo product, now free to use for Microsoft customers.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
23% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jul 2020
$3m
GRANT
Oct 2017
$3m
GRANT
Total funding: $16.2m
Company benefits
- Flexible spending account (FSA)
- Dental insurance
- Optical insurance
- Life insurance
- Performance bonus
- 401K plan
- Family medical leave
- Diversity program
- Pet friendly workplace
- Work from home opportunities
- Health insurance
- Affinity groups where Parents, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Women and Gender Minorities, and LGBTQIA+ identified folks come together
Company HQ
Mountain View, CA
Leadership
Caroline Hu Flexer
(Co-Founder & CEO)Holds a BA in Architecture from Stanford and Harvard University. They also have an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and formerly co-founded Duck Duck Moose, a mobile educational platform for children.
Salman Khan
(Co-Founder & Executive Director)They graduated from Harvard Business School and have previously worked in Finance.
Salary benchmarks
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