Senior Manager, Engineering, Knowledge Graph

Learning Commons•Redwood City, CA

2d•$241,000 - $331,100•Hybrid

About The Position

Learning Commons aims to scale proven teaching and learning practices to benefit every learner by building AI infrastructure that better connects the way students learn to the tools they learn with. At Learning Commons, we pair technology with grantmaking to scale proven teaching and learning practices to benefit every learner. We aim to translate what learning science tells us about how students learn best into classroom practice. With the advent of generative AI, that translation work can be accelerated and scaled to have a greater impact. Our mission is to bring learning science into the tools used every day by teachers and students, ensuring that technology reflects the realities of classrooms and strengthens teaching and learning. In today’s fragmented edtech landscape, school districts are often left piecing together products that don’t always align with curricula or instructional needs. While AI holds enormous potential to support educators, it can only deliver on that promise when grounded in research, high-quality educational data, and expert evaluation. That’s why we’re building open, public-purpose infrastructure — datasets, rubrics, and resources — that help raise the standard for educational tools and create more consistent, impactful learning experiences for all students and teachers. Educators are using AI-based tools to generate lesson plans, create classroom materials such as tests and assignments, and help differentiate instruction for students. At Learning Commons, we are inspired and excited by the possibilities and promise of AI to accelerate the availability of research-backed practices at scale. We are actively and thoughtfully exploring how to incorporate AI into products in close partnership with researchers, experts, and educators. As the Senior Engineering Manager for the Knowledge Graph team, you will lead the strategy, development, and operation of our foundational knowledge platform that is powering AI-enabled educational experiences. You will guide a team of engineers building large-scale graph infrastructure, ingestion pipelines, and developer access tools that connect learning science, curriculum standards, instructional resources, and classroom workflows into a cohesive ecosystem. You will partner closely with product managers, applied AI researchers, learning scientists and external education experts to develop systems that improve how educational content is organized, discovered and delivered. This role combines technical leadership, people management, organizational influence, and strategic thinking in service of building open infrastructure that advances teaching and learning. As a Senior Engineering Manager on the team, you will lead a cross-functional team of software engineers, data engineers and AI/ML experts.

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering experience, including experience leading and scaling high-performing engineering teams
Deep technical expertise in at least one of: data engineering, knowledge graphs, search and retrieval systems, or AI/ML infrastructure
The vision and pragmatism to drive widespread adoption of AI systems within engineering and across Learning Commons
Strong technical judgment, communication skills, and ability to balance long-term platform investments with near-term product delivery
Passion for education and building mission-driven technology that supports teachers and students through our build partners

Responsibilities

Lead and manage the high-performing team responsible for the Knowledge Graph platform, including graph infrastructure, dataset ingestion pipelines, and AI-powered retrieval capabilities.
Define and drive the technical strategy and roadmap for integrating educational content, learning science research, curriculum standards into scalable knowledge systems
Collaborate with Product, Design, Learning Science and Partnerships teams to drive forward our high-quality data and platform infrastructure
Establish strong engineering practices across architecture, reliability, security, and operational excellence while fostering a collaborative and inclusive team culture
Support team and organizational growth through hiring, mentoring, and developing engineering leaders and senior technical talent.