Chief Technology Officer

Co-Founder & CTO — Skillzy (AI Lab + LMS for K-12 and beyond)

Equity-based co-founder role | 10–15% founder equity | US, Denver preferred

A NOTE FROM OUR FOUNDER

Every school district in America is being told to "teach AI," and almost none have a safe, hands-on way to do it. Kids learn best by doing, breaking and fixing things. Nobody has built that experience for a 9-year-old, with guardrails a school board will sign off on. That's our gap, and the window is open right now.

WHAT WE'RE BUILDING

• Skillzy AI Lab: gamified, hands-on challenges in AI, coding and cyber safety for ages 7–14 (MVP in build)

• AI Tutor: a safe, curriculum-aligned assistant that coaches without giving away answers

• Skillzy LMS: classes, assignments, teacher dashboards, standards mapping, district reporting (next 6–12 months)

• Beyond K-12: higher-ed, workforce and certification pathways (18+ months)

We sell to schools and districts through B2B licensing, starting in Denver and Wyoming.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

• Architect and ship the AI Lab MVP, then grow it into a multi-tenant LMS

• Design our LLM layer: tutoring agents, auto-generated challenges, adaptive difficulty, age-appropriate guardrails

• Build sandboxed, auto-reset lab environments at classroom scale and classroom budget

• Make privacy a feature: FERPA, COPPA, state student-privacy laws, SOC 2 readiness, WCAG 2.1 AA

• Integrate with Google Classroom, Clever, ClassLink, LTI 1.3 and SSO

• Hire and lead our first engineers and set the engineering culture

• Pitch alongside me to VCs and own technical due diligence

TECH STACK (you'll have the final call)

• Frontend: React / Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, Chromebook-first

• Backend: Node.js (NestJS) or Python (FastAPI)

• AI: AWS Bedrock, RAG on curriculum content, agent workflows, evals

• Data: PostgreSQL (Aurora), Redis, S3, pgvector or OpenSearch

• Labs: containers on ECS/EKS, browser-based sandboxes

• DevSecOps: GitHub Actions, Terraform, CloudWatch, Cognito

YOUR FIRST 12 MONTHS: MVP TO VC-READY

• Days 1–90: Ship the AI Lab MVP and go live with pilot schools

• Months 4–6: Turn pilots into paid district licenses

• Months 6–9: Raise pre-seed/seed with edtech and AI-focused VCs

• Months 9–12: Hire the first engineers and launch the LMS layer

• Month 12+: Scale districts and build toward Series A

WHO YOU ARE

• 8+ years in software, with at least one product shipped 0-to-1

• Hands-on full-stack depth on AWS; you can write production code in week one

• Real experience building with LLMs: RAG, agents, evals, cost control

• Strong security and privacy instincts

• Able to work equity-first for 12–18 months

• Bonus: EdTech/LMS experience, CTF or sandbox platforms, a past VC-backed startup

This isn't for you if you need a full salary next month or would rather manage than build.

COMPENSATION

• 10–15% founder equity, based on experience and commitment, 4-year vest with a 1-year cliff

• Base salary: $0 until the first milestone below

• Partial salary begins at $25K MRR (~$300K ARR)

• Market-rate founder salary at $85K MRR (~$1M ARR) or a closed seed round

• Full salary, benefits and equity refresh after Series A

• Expected salary range once triggered: $[X]–$[Y] per year

IS THIS YOU?

If five of these are true, let's talk this week:

• I've shipped a product from an empty repo to paying users

• I've built something with an LLM that real people use

• I can explain COPPA and FERPA to a principal in two minutes

• I'd rather own the upside than take a safe salary right now

• I'm excited, not scared, to sit across from VCs

• I believe every kid deserves to learn AI by building

HOW TO APPLY

Skip the cover letter. Send three things to [email protected] with the subject "Skillzy CTO Co-Founder":

1. Something you built from zero, and what you'd do differently

2. In 200 words or less: how you'd architect a safe AI Lab for a 9-year-old

3. Your ideal equity and salary-trigger terms