Notice to applicants:

We have seen a rise in recruitment scams. Please note that outreach from Khan Academy recruiters will only come from the @khanacademy.org domain. Our team does not use Gmail or other personal accounts for contacting potential candidates. Khan Academy will never solicit money, equipment fees, or sensitive financial information at any stage of the hiring process. We also do not work with external recruiting agencies, so outreach from headhunters presenting opportunities on behalf of Khan Academy is illegitimate. Please always check the email domain and cross-reference the position with the official Khan Academy Careers page to confirm an opening is valid.

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to deliver a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Our proven learning platform offers free, high-quality supplemental learning content and practice that cover Pre-K - 12th grade and early college core academic subjects, focusing on math and science. We have over 181 million registered learners globally and are committed to improving learning outcomes for students worldwide, focusing on learners in historically under-resourced communities.

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY KIDS

Khan Academy Kids is a free and fun learning program for children ages two to eight. Kodi Bear and a cast of animated characters lead children on a personalized education journey filled with fun, standards-aligned activities in early literacy, math, executive functioning, and social-emotional skills. Built by a small but mighty team, Khan Academy Kids is used by millions of children in homes and classrooms around the world.

OUR COMMUNITY 

Our students, teachers, and parents come from all walks of life, and so do we. Our team includes people from academia, traditional/non-traditional education, big tech companies, and tiny startups. We hire great people from diverse backgrounds and experiences because it makes our company stronger. We value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as necessary to achieve our mission and impact the communities we serve. We know that transforming education starts in-house with learning about ourselves and our colleagues. We strive to be world-class in investing in our people and commit to developing you as a professional.

THE ROLE

The Senior Technical Support Specialist will serve as the primary owner of the Khan Academy Kids support function — the trusted first point of contact for our users and a strategic partner to our Product, Engineering, and Partnerships teams. This is a build role: you'll own the end-to-end support experience for Khan Kids — designing the systems and processes that make it run, while staying in the work yourself across everything from individual parent inquiries to district-level app deployments and product release readiness.

This role supports all of Khan Kids' audiences. You'll context-switch between a parent troubleshooting an app issue and a district IT admin navigating a Clever integration, and you'll bring the same care, technical fluency, and follow-through to both. You'll also serve as the internal voice of our users, surfacing trends and insights that directly inform how we build and improve our product.

This is a fully remote position open to candidates based in the US or Canada. Proximity to our San Mateo, CA office is a plus, as the Khan Kids Product and Engineering team is based there.

Key Responsibilities:

The approximate time allocations below reflect a typical distribution, but will shift seasonally based on user needs. For example, during back-to-school season, district and partner support will naturally take a larger share of focus.

Grassroots User Support (~40%)

• Own our Zendesk account end-to-end — managing inbound tickets from parents, teachers, and app store reviews with prompt, accurate, and empathetic responses, while also configuring workflows, macros, and tagging taxonomies to handle growing volume efficiently.
• Define, track, and report on core support metrics — including first response time, resolution time, and ticket volume — using data and AI tools to surface patterns, drive process improvements, and bring structured insights to Product and Engineering.
• Surface, replicate, and document user-reported bugs and ticket trends, serving as the go-between for users and the Product and Engineering teams to ensure issues are tracked, resolved, and informing the roadmap.
• Maintain and improve our Help Center and technical user guides — writing and updating support articles, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, release notes, and device-specific resources (e.g., Google Admin Console guides for Chromebook deployments) — leveraging AI tools for efficient content creation.
• Serve as first responder for user-facing incidents — coordinating with Engineering on triage, communicating status to affected users and partners, and documenting post-mortems.
• Conduct regular testing of the Khan Kids app experience, including structured competitor analysis of peer apps, to proactively surface friction points and keep support content accurate as the product evolves.

Partner & District Support (~40%)

• Support district rostering via Clever and manual methods, serving as a knowledgeable resource for district IT administrators navigating app deployment and setup.
• Triage, test, and track technical support issues for district and school partners, leading technical support calls as needed to resolve complex issues.
• Collaborate with our District Success Team to write and maintain district-facing support resources, ensuring partners have what they need to successfully deploy and scale Khan Kids in their schools.
• Build and maintain positive relationships with district and school partners, ensuring a high level of satisfaction and long-term engagement

Product Release Support (~20%)

• Partner with Product and Engineering to coordinate QA testing ahead of app updates, new features, and content launches — and develop corresponding support resources so users and partners are prepared from day one.
• Maintain a close working relationship with the broader Khan Academy support team to align on tools, standards, and escalation processes.

WHAT YOU BRING

• 5+ years of experience in customer support, technical support, or a related field, ideally in an EdTech or consumer app environment.
• Hands-on experience with Zendesk or a comparable support ticketing platform, including account configuration and management — not just day-to-day use.
• Experience supporting educational deployments — including rostering platforms (e.g., Clever, ClassLink), mobile device management (e.g., JAMF, Mosyle), and admin consoles (e.g., Google Admin, Apple School Manager) — or a demonstrated ability to learn complex technical ecosystems quickly.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Strong analytical mindset — comfortable using ticket data, trends, and user feedback to identify patterns and inform decisions.
• Exceptional attention to detail and strong follow-through.
• A self-starter who thrives with ownership and can manage multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment.
• Motivated by the Khan Academy mission “to provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere."
• Proven cross-cultural competency skills demonstrating self-awareness, awareness of other, and the ability to adopt inclusive perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors to drive inclusion and belonging throughout the organization.
• A collaborative team player who works well across Product, Engineering, and Partnerships teams.

Nice to haves

• Familiarity with the Khan Academy Kids app and product.
• Familiarity with AI tools (e.g., Claude, Cursor) for content creation and support workflows.
• Spanish language proficiency.
• Proximity to our San Mateo, CA office

PERKS AND BENEFITS

We may be a non-profit, but we reward our talented team extremely well! We offer:

• Competitive salaries
• Ample paid time off as needed – Your well-being is a priority
• 8 pre-scheduled Wellness Days in 2026 occurring on a Monday or a Friday for a 3-day weekend boost
• Remote-first culture - that caters to your time zone, with open flexibility as needed, at times
• Generous parental leave
• An exceptional team that trusts you and gives you the freedom to do your best
• The chance to put your talents towards a deeply meaningful mission and the opportunity to work on high-impact products that are already defining the future of education
• Opportunities to connect through affinity, ally, and social groups
• And we offer all those other typical benefits as well: 401(k) + 4% matching & comprehensive insurance, including medical, dental, vision, and life

At Khan Academy we are committed to fair and equitable compensation practices, the well-being of our employees, and our Khan community. This belief is why we have built out a robust Total Rewards package that includes competitive base salaries, and extensive benefits and perks to support physical, mental, and financial well-being. The compensation band for this role is $96,800 - $108,900 USD annually for candidates based in the United States and $130,807 - $147,158 CAD annually for candidates based in Canada.

The pay range for this position is a general guideline only. The salary offered will depend on internal pay equity and the candidate’s relevant skills, experience, qualifications, and job market data. 

MORE ABOUT US

• Sal’s TED talk from 2011
• Sal’s TED talk from 2015
• Sal's TED talk from 2023
• Our team:  http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team

OUR COMPANY VALUES

Live & breathe learners

We deeply understand and empathize with our users. We leverage user insights, research, and experience to build content, products, services, and experiences that our users trust and love. Our success is defined by the success of our learners and educators.

Take a stand

As a company, we have conviction in our aspirational point of view of how education will evolve. The work we do is in service to moving towards that point of view. However, we also listen, learn and flex in the face of new data, and commit to evolving this point of view as the industry and our users evolve.

Embrace diverse perspectives

We are a diverse community. We seek out and embrace a diversity of voices, perspectives and life experiences leading to stronger, more inclusive teams and better outcomes. As individuals, we are committed to bringing up tough topics and leaning into different points of view with curiosity. We actively listen, learn and collaborate to gain a shared understanding. When a decision is made, we commit to moving forward as a united team.

Work responsibly and sustainably

We understand that achieving our audacious mission is a marathon, so we set realistic timelines and we focus on delivery that also links to the bigger picture. As a non-profit, we are supported by the generosity of donors as well as strategic partners, and understand our responsibility to our finite resources. We spend every dollar as though it were our own. We are responsible for the impact we have on the world and to each other. We ensure our team and company stay healthy and financially sustainable.

Bring out the joy

We are committed to making learning a joyful process. This informs what we build for our users and the culture we co-create with our teammates, partners and donors.

Cultivate learning mindset

We believe in the power of growth for learners and for ourselves. We constantly learn and teach to improve our offerings, ourselves, and our organization. We learn from our mistakes and aren’t afraid to fail. We don't let past failures or successes stop us from taking future bold action and achieving our goals.

Deliver wow

We insist on high standards and deliver delightful, effective end-to-end experiences that our users can rely on. We choose to focus on fewer things — each of which aligns to our ambitious vision — so we can deliver high-quality experiences that accelerate positive measurable learning with our strategic partners.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.

As part of this commitment, Khan Academy will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact careers@khanacademy.org

About the role

Our Mission teams operate like small startups within the Vannevar Labs umbrella. As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will serve as the technical owner for a mission and its associated customer engagements. You will work directly with operators, analysts, and technical stakeholders supporting national security missions, owning the architecture, development, deployment, and fielding of software solutions tailored to real-world operational needs.

In this role, you will act as a senior technical counterpart to customer stakeholders — translating mission requirements into scalable software, navigating government technical environments, and ensuring capabilities are delivered reliably into production. You will collaborate closely with product, design, platform engineering, and mission teammates to deliver high-impact outcomes, while remaining a hands-on individual contributor.

What you'll do

• Architect, build, and own software solutions deployed directly to customer environments in support of mission-critical use cases
• Serve as the primary technical point of contact for customer stakeholders, engaging with senior technical leaders to understand mission needs and represent Vannevar’s technical approach
• Own end-to-end technical delivery for your mission workstreams, from requirements gathering and system design through implementation, deployment, and sustainment
• Contribute hands-on code to improve product capabilities, performance, and scalability across customer use cases
• Build software that enables users to unlock value from large-scale data holdings, including text, multimedia, and geospatial datasets spanning over 46 languages
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners — including engineers, product designers, and mission domain experts — to plan and deliver complex software features
• Support government-facing technical artifacts as needed, including input to RFIs, RFPs, Statements of Work, and white papers
• Navigate and integrate with government IT ecosystems, ensuring solutions meet security, compliance, and operational constraints
• This is a fully remote role, but traveling is required - travel up to 20–30% to engage directly with mission owners and deliver capabilities in the field

What you should have

• 5+ years as a Full Stack Developer including familiarity with relational databases (like Postgres), caching technologies (like Redis), object storage systems (like S3), and modern front-end frameworks (like React)
• Experience developing and deploying software compliant with DoD Risk Management Framework (RMF)
• Experience interfacing with government owned IT systems (for example, data platforms, IdAM providers, SIEM, CDSs, etc)
• Experience working with government IT and program offices to scope technical requirements, architecture, and integrations
• Experience working with end users to scope mission requirements, conduct user testing, and gain product feedback
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills
• Must hold an active U.S. TS Security clearance with SCI Eligibility
• This role is hybrid in our Honolulu office

What we offer

Competitive Salary

The salary range for this position is $135,000-$205,000 + equity. Within the range, individual pay is determined by experience, relevant education, and/or training.

Comprehensive Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Remote friendly with WeWork access
• Unlimited PTO, shared downtime during the federal holiday calendar, and company-wide off time at the end of each year
• 401(k) match
• Lifestyle & wellbeing stipends
• Salary top-up during military reserve duty
• Fully paid parental leave
• Child and pet care reimbursement during travel