AI Learning Scientist
About The Position
It is Kira Learning's mission to harness transformative AI technologies to make world-class teaching and learning accessible to everyone. Kira is a rapidly growing startup backed by top-tier Venture Capital funds including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andrew Ng's AI Fund, and Primavera. We live in a world where technology is rapidly changing the educational experiences of students and teachers everywhere, and we have the opportunity to shape how this change takes place. As an AI Learning Scientist at Kira, you will help ensure that the AI features we build are pedagogically sound and actually move student outcomes. AI is reshaping what classrooms and student learning looks like, and you will help define what high-quality learning looks like in this new era. You will partner with our product and engineering teams to ground our AI systems in evidence-based learning science, and you will help ensure that what we build improves student outcomes.
Requirements
- Strong working knowledge of K-12 instruction, including curriculum standards, assessment design, and the realities of classroom practice.
- Experience designing and evaluating learning interventions, ideally with quantitative methods such as randomized studies, quasi-experiments, or rigorous observational designs.
- Comfortable working with technical teams and can engage substantively with topics like machine learning evaluation, recommendation systems, or psychometrics.
- Communicate clearly in writing and verbally, and can move between research-grade precision and product-friendly summaries.
- Excited about applying AI to education and have a thoughtful, evidence-based view on what it can and cannot do well.
- A degree in learning sciences, educational psychology, cognitive science, or a closely related field.
Nice To Haves
- Classroom teaching experience in a K-12 setting.
- Worked in an edtech product environment or at a research-practice partnership.
- Published research on AI tutors, intelligent tutoring systems, mastery learning, or adaptive assessment.
- Experience with MTSS, response to intervention, or other tiered support frameworks.
- Hands-on experience running pilots or efficacy studies with school districts.
Responsibilities
- Partner with product and engineering teams to ensure our student-facing AI features, such as our AI tutor, are pedagogically sound and genuinely improve learning outcomes.
- Ground our AI features in evidence-based instructional strategies, including scaffolding, worked examples, retrieval practice, and adaptive feedback.
- Help shape how we measure student understanding and progress over time, working closely with the AI team on personalization and mastery.
- Partner with product and curriculum teams on standards alignment, skill progressions, and the cognitive demand of the work students do on Kira.
- Contribute to how we evaluate the quality of our AI systems, including automated evaluations and human review.
- Represent Kira's pedagogical approach to external audiences, including district administrators, researchers, and partners, through written materials, conference talks, and customer conversations.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation and equity.
- Medical, dental, vision and life insurance, including a medical insurance plan with 100% coverage of employee.
- DoorDash credit for lunch daily.
- Wellhub Membership: 100% company-paid access to premium gym networks (Orangetheory, SoulCycle), 60+ wellness apps (Headspace, MyFitnessPal, Apple Fitness+), and 1:1 coaching sessions spanning fitness, mental health, nutrition, and sleep.
- Pet friendly office
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
