The posting
Today, 67% of students and 82% of low-income students can’t read at grade level by the end of third grade. That’s when students are supposed to go from learning to read to reading to learn. It’s America’s number one education crisis and we know how to fix it.
Ignite Reading delivers one-to-one virtual tutoring that teaches every student the foundational skills they need to become a confident, fluent reader. We pair students who need extra support with expert reading tutors who provide daily, 15-minute, Science of Reading-based instruction that rapidly closes their decoding gaps. We focus on the foundational reading skills—phonics, phonemic awareness, and sight words—kids need to master so they can decode a sentence. Students in Ignite Reading’s program achieve over 2 weeks of reading skills growth per week of instruction, and notably all students achieve the same outstanding results including students with IEPs, multilingual learners, students of color and those receiving free or reduced-price lunch.
Ignite Reading is a mission-driven public benefit corporation. We believe we can do well for our team members and shareholders while we solve one of the nation’s biggest challenges. We believe we will be more successful with a diverse team and are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
YOUR ROLE
Ignite Reading’s mission is to teach every kid to read — and the Product & Program Analytics team sits at the heart of how the organization executes that mission through our Science of Reading-based curriculum. As Senior Manager, you will lead a talented and highly collaborative team to deliver the insights, models, and measurement frameworks that guide our curriculum, product, and intervention strategies.
This is a player-coach role. You will spend roughly 60–70% of your time managing, enabling, and developing your team, and 30–40% doing hands-on analytical work yourself. You will own sprint management, project management, and cross-functional stakeholder relationships with our Product and Academics teams. In addition, you will bring meaningful AI fluency to the team, acting as a leader in our initiatives to accelerate analytical workflows and extend the team’s capacity with agentic workflows and Skills.
This role reports to the VP of Data & Analytics and works in close partnership with the broader Data & Analytics team. It is an exceptional opportunity for a seasoned analytics leader who wants their work to directly shape how millions of students learn to read.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
TEAM LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of three: a staff data scientist and two analysts, fostering a collaborative, supportive, and growth-focused environment.
- Provide technical guidance and hands-on support on high-stakes analytics and data science projects, ensuring the team has the tools, context, and skills needed to do their best work.
- Actively invest in the team’s AI fluency and utilization, evaluating emerging AI tools and techniques and leveraging Claude Code, Claude Cowork, and related tools to accelerate analytical workflows and extend team capacity.
ANALYTICS & DATA SCIENCE
- Own and advance program analytics in support of Ignite Reading’s Academics team, providing rigorous measurement of curriculum performance and student success, including assessment against third-party benchmarks such as DIBELS, iReady, and STAR, and conducting analyses to inform what types of interventions to develop and to determine how effective they are.
- Own and advance product analytics across Ignite Reading’s platform, measuring feature adoption, student engagement, and usage patterns to inform product strategy and prioritization.
- Help drive the development of the company’s experimentation platform, establishing best practices for experimental design, analysis, and interpretation.
- Roll up your sleeves alongside the team on selected analytics projects: responding to high-priority ad hoc requests, designing prototypes to accelerate builds, and personally owning discrete analyses end to end.
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT & STAKEHOLDER PARTNERSHIP
- Own sprint management, project execution, and delivery for the Product & Program Analytics team, conducting planning sessions and leading retrospectives to continuously improve team processes.
- Build and maintain strong cross-functional relationships with Product and Academics stakeholders, translating business and academic questions into analytical initiatives and communicating findings clearly to non-technical audiences.
- Collaborate on the team’s strategic roadmap with the VP of Data & Analytics, aligning project priorities with organizational goals and tracking progress against timelines.
QUALIFICATIONS
REQUIRED
- 7–10+ years of experience in analytics and data science in ed-tech or another relevant tech industry, with 2–4+ years as a senior manager in a data analytics or data science function. Must have meaningful prior experience as an individual contributor in both analytics and data science.
- Proven track record managing and developing analysts and/or data scientists, with a genuine investment in their growth.
- Highly proficient in SQL and Python for analysis, modeling, and data manipulation; experienced with Tableau or comparable BI tools; familiar with DBT and modern cloud data warehouses.
- Strong quantitative foundation: proficiency in statistical modeling, experimental design, and rigorous analytical methods applied to real business or learning program questions.
- Meaningful hands-on experience building agentic workflows, Claude Skills, or LLM-based automations (specifically using Claude Code and Claude Cowork) to accelerate analytical and ML workflows on the job.
- Demonstrated experience with Agile/sprint methodologies in an analytics context.
- An exceptional communicator who can translate complex technical concepts into clear business actions for a variety of audiences.
- A calm self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, high-growth, start-up environment and is adept at simultaneously managing multiple workflows.
- Highly passionate about our mission to teach kids to read.
PREFERRED
- Background in curriculum analytics, learning science, or ed-tech product analytics.
- Experience working with student, education, or learning data; familiarity with PII handling requirements.
- Experience with applying experimentation methods and best practices.
Compensation & Benefits
At Ignite Reading, we embrace transparent compensation for a few reasons: to promote fairness and equity, to reduce pay discrimination based on gender, race, or negotiation skill, and to build trust within our team. The same role receives the same compensation — no negotiation.
Salary: $175,000
We also ensure you have the tools you need to thrive both in and out of work.
📈 Employee Stock Options - we want our success to be yours too
🩺 Medical, Dental, and Vision plans to support you and your well-being (80% employee coverage, 70% dependent coverage)
🏥 Short-term Disability (100% employer paid)
🏦 401(k) retirement plans with company contribution
👶 12-weeks paid parental leave
🌴 Unlimited vacation days (+ 12 paid holidays)
💻 Technology Stipend
🧘 Wellness Stipend
🛟 Voluntary Life Insurance
👩💻 Professional Development Stipend
We believe in building and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace environment. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer where all applicants are considered for employment without attention to color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don't apply for roles if they don't meet all the criteria – unlike majority candidates meeting significantly fewer requirements. We strongly encourage you to apply if you’re interested!
We are seeking candidates who have lived experience related to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are a virtual organization with headquarters in the California Bay Area.
