Youth Development Specialist, Alpha – $100,000/year USD

• $100,000 annual W2 compensation, distributed weekly; comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage begins on day one
• On-site placement at an Alpha K-8 school in Denver, CO; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston (Central, South, or The Woodlands), TX; Park City, UT (Salt Lake City metro); or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance available)

Your role is not instruction. Your role is motivation.

The most meaningful support you can offer a student who achieved 99% of their target is to not accept it as complete. If that expectation troubles you, this role is not for you. If it energizes you because maintaining standards is how you communicate belief in a student’s capacity, continue reading.

Alpha students complete academic work through AI-driven applications. No traditional lessons. No physical textbooks. You will spend half your day facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions covering public speaking, concentration, and constructive feedback exchange. The remaining half involves working with students individually or in small groups, analyzing their Coachbot performance data, and driving each one toward 100% completion of weekly app targets. You will not follow a rigid script—workshops provide a foundation, but high performers in this role customize them and create new content when needed.

Success in a quarter means every student in your group completes their weekly app objectives, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills workshops, and 90%+ report that they love working with you. Falling short on any of these three measures means the job is not done. Year one focuses on mastering the system; once you demonstrate your ability to uphold standards, advancement to Lead Guide becomes available, where you mentor new team members while continuing direct student engagement.

If you prefer traditional classroom teaching, need fully prepared curriculum, or view warmth and rigor as incompatible, this position will not fit. If your background includes athletic coaching, camp leadership, tutoring where you refused to let students give up, or performance work that could captivate young children, the final step before receiving an offer is spending a full day on campus coaching actual Alpha students. If that prospect excites you most, submit your application today.

What you will be doing

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions for K-8 groups covering public speaking, concentration, feedback mechanics, and other foundational competencies, customizing the framework and creating new sessions when you identify needs
• Conducting daily individual and small-group coaching that drives every student to 100% weekly app goal completion, leveraging Coachbot data, Alpha’s motivation systems (campus currency, performance boards), and your individual relationships to overcome resistance
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha’s competency-based evaluation) for each life skill, then coaching students who do not pass until they achieve mastery
• Adjusting your approach across a broad developmental spectrum, from kindergarteners requiring high energy and physical activity to eighth graders needing direct conversation and responsibility
• Serving as both the adult who maintains expectations and the adult students choose to confide in; connection earns the credibility to challenge, and challenge demonstrates your confidence in their potential

What you will NOT be doing

• Delivering whiteboard instruction; academic content is housed in the applications, not delivered by you
• Building curriculum from the ground up; you animate an established framework through energy and narrative
• Passively monitoring students at workstations; motivation in this environment is active, interpersonal, and persistent
• Reducing a weekly target to help a student reach it; when a student falls behind, the solution involves the student, not the goal
• Assessing homework, conducting standardized test preparation, or handling parent outreach; Campus Leads manage family communication, and the other tasks do not exist in this model

Key Responsibilities

Guarantee that every student in your K-8 group achieves their weekly learning targets, demonstrates mastery of each life skill, and finishes the year reporting they loved working with you.

Candidate Requirements

• Available to work on-site at an Alpha campus located in Denver, CO; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX (Central, South, or The Woodlands); Park City, UT; or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance provided)
• Bachelor’s degree in any discipline
• Minimum 3 years of direct experience working with K-8 students (teaching, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program management)
• A concrete example you can articulate of motivating a K-8 student toward a challenging objective: the objective itself, your actions, and the result
• Comfort allowing AI to manage instructional delivery while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills development
• Regular use of generative AI platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude)
• Authorization to work in the United States without requiring visa sponsorship (or in Canada for the Toronto location)

Nice to have

• Background in youth sports coaching, debate programs, camp management, theater, or after-school initiatives where you held direct accountability for motivating children toward defined outcomes
• Demonstrated personal achievement (academic, athletic, or professional) indicating that maintaining high standards for others reflects consistent practice, not adopted behavior
• Communication and presentation skills capable of engaging a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without volume escalation
• Proven success converting unengaged or resistant students into willing contributors

This position is also known as:

• Youth Mentor
• Career Coach
• Tutor
• Counselor
• Coach
• Youth Counselor
• Camp Counselor
• Youth Program Director
• Youth Program Coordinator
• Associate