Founding Engineer, Generalist

About JournifyJournify Learning is the evidence-based AI assistant for special education teams. We help educators save time on progress tracking and data work, and drive better student outcomes with practices like High-Leverage Practices and UDL. We support educators across 15+ U.S. states, backed by NewSchools Venture Fund and Reach Capital ($3.7M raised), with recognition from Digital Promise, the Tools Competition, and the ASU GSV Cup 50. We’re not just shipping software. We’re a team that shows up to solve problems for special education teams, and with them. Backend, frontend, UX, AI: software is one medium for that work, and we own it end to end. If that kind of partnership lights you up, you’ll feel at home here. How we workWe’re a people-first team. We care deeply about each other, about the educators we serve, and about doing work we’re proud of. The bar is high. You’ll be joining an exceptional group, and the culture is warm. We put people at the center: our teammates, our teacher advisory board, and the special education teams who trust us with their hardest problems. You’ll have real ownership, real trust, and people around you who want you to succeed. About the roleYou own problems end to end: for the people you’re solving for, and with them, not just in the codebase. Someone on a special ed team is stuck in fragmented tools, messy data, or a workflow that shouldn’t take this long. You’ll sit with them (or with our teacher advisory board), understand what’s going on, propose a path, ship it across the stack, and come back to close the loop. That rhythm (listen, decide, build, follow through) is the heart of the role. Backend, frontend, UX, AI: whichever medium the problem needs. You’ll likely be strongest on the backend, and that’s great. We’re happy to grow with you on frontend. What matters most is curiosity about product and UX, and a willingness to ship on the frontend when that’s what helps. You’ll also work with agents: building and running them to help educators, and to make our own internal processes sharper and faster. This is a founding seat. You’ll help shape what we build next, not only how we build it. We’re looking for high agency: people who see a gap, pick it up, and drive it forward without waiting to be asked twice. We’ll be straight with you about the hard partProjects often arrive as outcomes, not tickets. “Teachers need a clearer picture of whether this intervention is working.” Your job is to own the finer details (the design choices, the edge cases, the tradeoffs) without needing constant back-and-forth. You keep the educator in the center while you do it. That’s why engineering talks to customers and to our ongoing teacher advisory board as a normal part of the work. The domain is genuinely hard, too. Special education data is messy. Systems don’t always agree. Compliance is real. And when we build AI, guardrails aren’t optional. They’re a necessity. We ground our systems, run evaluators against them, and take seriously what it means to put AI in front of educators and students. If you enjoy bringing clarity to that kind of complexity, with teachers in the room and with rigor on how AI behaves, this work will feel meaningful. What you’ll doSolve real problems for special education teams and with them, using software as the medium when that’s what the problem needs.Ship production features across backend, frontend, and AI (Python, React, Azure, OpenAI).Join customer conversations, build rapport with educators and our teacher advisory board, and turn what you learn into shipped solutions.Propose solutions, build them, and close the loop when they’re live.Build and run agents that help educators and that improve how we work internally.Build AI that’s grounded and evaluated. Guardrails as a default, not an afterthought.Help with product prioritization and contribute to the vision for where Journify goes next.Bring high agency to early-stage work: if it helps our people or the teams we serve, you lean in. You’re probably a fit ifYou’re sharp on backend systems and you’ve shipped real production software with a team.You want to solve problems for educators and with them, and you’re glad to use backend, frontend, UX, or AI as the medium.You’re high agency: you take ownership, make thoughtful calls, and move things forward.You’re excited to grow on frontend and UX, and you care how the product feels for a teacher at the end of a long day.You’ve built or run agents (or you’re eager to), both for product and for making internal work better.You take AI safety and quality seriously. Grounding, evals, and guardrails feel like craft to you, not bureaucracy.You enjoy talking with customers: advocating for them, fixing what matters, and following through.You’re comfortable taking a high-level outcome and driving the details yourself, with judgment and care.Messy domains energize you: incomplete data, real compliance constraints, humans in the loop.You want founding-level ownership (product taste and “what should we build?”) alongside strong execution. Nice to have, not requiredEdTech, K-12, or special education experiencePrior customer-facing or solutions-minded engineering rolesDeep React/TypeScript experience (enthusiasm and taste matter a lot on day one)Experience with Azure, school data systems, or education compliance How we hireWe designed this process to feel like working together, not performing. Screen + get-to-know-you (~45–60 minutes): who you are, how you think, what kind of work lights you up.If that’s a mutual yes: a full-day work-together in person at a WeWork. We get you access and spend the day on real Journify problems. No toy whiteboard puzzles. We care about how you collaborate, decide, and adapt. How to applyEmail your resume and a short note to Sagar Manchanda at sagar@journify-learning.com with the subject line: Founding Engineer, Generalist - Application. In the note, tell us about a time you took a fuzzy problem, owned the details, and shipped something that genuinely helped someone. If you’ve built or run agents (for users or to make a team’s work better), we’d love to hear about that too. We’re excited to meet you.