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

The most meaningful support you can offer a student at 99% of their weekly target is to hold the line. Not out of indifference, but because you know they can finish, and lowering the standard is where the true failure lies.

You will not be teaching in the traditional sense. At Alpha, students master academic content through AI-driven adaptive learning platforms. No lectures. No textbooks. No whiteboard instruction. Motivation and life skills—typically afterthoughts in conventional schools—are the core of your work here.

Consider a typical Tuesday. You spend half the day facilitating one-hour workshops for K-8 cohorts, covering public speaking, focus, and how to exchange meaningful feedback. The remainder is spent working with those students individually or in small groups, reviewing their Coachbot data, and driving each one to complete 100% of their weekly app targets using school currency, leaderboards, and the trust you've cultivated to overcome resistance.

Your quarter is defined by three metrics: all students in your cohort meet their weekly app targets, all students pass the Test2Pass mastery check for each workshop, and 90% or more report that they love you. Falling short on even one metric means the role was not fulfilled.

The reward is witnessing a student who spent September convinced they couldn't do math ask you to increase their goal.

This is a full-time, on-site position at one of Alpha's campuses. We recruit nationally, so this posting may appear in nearby cities where we do not yet have a campus.

Current openings at this salary level are in Scottsdale, AZ; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Dallas, Plano, Fort Worth, Houston, and Brownsville, TX; Springfield, MA; and Park City, UT.

If another Alpha campus interests you, apply regardless and indicate your preferred location—we'll consider you for the relevant opening.

If you have coached youth sports, led a cabin at camp, or tutored a student on the verge of quitting, the final step before an offer is a full day on campus coaching actual Alpha students. If that day is what excites you most, apply today.

What You Will Be Doing

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-8 cohorts, covering topics such as public speaking, focus, and exchanging feedback
• Conducting daily one-on-one and small-group motivation sessions designed to drive every student to 100% of their weekly app targets, leveraging Coachbot analytics and Alpha's incentive structures (school currency, leaderboards)
• Delivering the Test2Pass mastery assessment for each life skill, then providing additional coaching to any student who does not pass until mastery is achieved
• Refining the workshop playbook and creating new sessions when gaps emerge, ensuring content resonates with both kindergarteners and eighth graders
• Serving as both the adult who upholds the standard and the adult your students confide in
  
  

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Teaching from a whiteboard, developing math and reading lesson plans, or grading homework; academic content is delivered through the apps
• Conducting standardized test prep or being held accountable for a class-wide test score
• Managing parent conferences, emails, and complaints; campus leadership handles all parent-facing responsibilities
• Controlling 30 students simultaneously; cohorts are small and behavior work is one-on-one coaching
• Supervising students at computers; motivation work here is active and interpersonal
  
  

Youth Development Specialist Key Responsibilities

Ensure that every student in your K-8 cohort meets their weekly learning targets, masters each life skill, and finishes the year reporting they loved school.

Basic Requirements

• Willing to work on-site at an Alpha campus in Scottsdale, AZ; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Dallas, Plano, Fort Worth, Houston, and Brownsville, TX; Springfield, MA; or Park City, UT - relocation support provided
• Bachelor's degree in any subject
• At least 3 years of direct experience working with K-8 (elementary and middle school) students: classroom teaching, tutoring, athletic coaching, camp leadership, or youth program work
• Comfortable allowing adaptive learning software to deliver academic instruction while you focus on motivation and life-skills coaching
• A personal track record of high achievement—academic, athletic, or professional—that has made upholding a rigorous standard a habit rather than a stance
• Stage presence sufficient to engage a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without raising your voice
• Legal authorization to work in the United States without visa sponsorship
  
  

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Experience coaching youth athletics, debate, drama, camp leadership, or after-school programs where you were directly accountable for students achieving a specific goal
• Background teaching social-emotional learning (SEL) or durable-skills curricula
• A specific student you can name who transitioned from resistant or disengaged to fully engaged, and the precise intervention you made
• Regular use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini
  
  

About Alpha

Join the team building school around student growth

Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills.

Roles with real student impact: Alpha hires teachers (guides), operators, admissions experts, school & curriculum leaders, and remote team members.

Education work that pays like it matters: Alpha offers six-figure roles for people ready to help build a radically better school experience.

A culture built for builders: Alpha is fast-moving, ambitious, and student focused. It’s for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it.

Alpha is where you can do the most meaningful work of your career.

There is so much to cover for this exciting role, and space here is limited. Hit the Apply button if you found this interesting and want to learn more. We look forward to meeting you!

Working with us

This is a full-time (40 hours per week), long-term position. The position is immediately available and requires entering into an independent contractor agreement with Crossover as a Contractor of Record. The compensation level for this role is $50 USD/hour, which equates to $100,000 USD/year assuming 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year. The payment period is weekly. Consult www.crossover.com/help-and-faqs for more details on this topic.

Crossover Job Code: LJ-4415-US-CollegeS-YouthDevelopme