Academic Coach, Alpha - $150,000/year USD

• On-site position at Alpha School locations in Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Monica, CA; San Francisco, CA; Greenwich, CT; Boston, MA; or New York City, NY
• $150,000/year W2 compensation, paid weekly. Health benefits begin day one.
• Relocation assistance available for candidates committing to one school year on campus
  
  

You believe that refusing to lower standards is the most compassionate approach to student development. Your background includes competition, achievement, or building at a level most people only encounter in articles: elite-level athletics, graduation with honors from a top-tier institution, employment at a highly selective organization, or a venture you launched independently. Now consider channeling that drive into a setting with K-12 students who have never encountered someone with your credentials willing to push them toward standards they didn't imagine reaching. If maintaining elite expectations for students strikes you as unreasonable, this role is not for you.

Alpha leverages AI-powered 1-on-1 instruction enabling students to complete core academics in approximately two hours daily. The remaining time is dedicated to life skills, passion projects, and substantive personal development. At Alpha's most demanding campuses, students require more than oversight. They need a credible mentor whose track record defines the benchmark: someone capable of assessing group dynamics, establishing culture, and guiding them through resistance, distraction, and uncertainty.

Instruction is not your responsibility. AI delivers the academic content. Your responsibility is to motivate, coach, and enforce the same rigorous standards you've applied to yourself. Forty percent of your time involves direct 1-on-1 and small-group coaching sessions that identify obstacles and establish ambitious targets. Another forty percent consists of facilitating structured life-skills workshops designed for mastery rather than engagement. The final twenty percent is spent conducting focused morning sessions that create a culture rejecting mediocrity.

The trajectory here emphasizes depth over management advancement. You begin by mastering Alpha's methodology and earning student trust. Within months, you become the person they trust to push them beyond perceived limits. The payoff isn't upward mobility. It's the same students, year after year, maturing with your consistent support. It's observing a student who avoided eye contact in September confidently presenting to adults in May.

This position remains student-centered. Students are the objective, not a path to something else. If your motivation to leave your current position is the mission rather than resume enhancement, submit your application now.

What You Will Be Doing

• Conducting 1-on-1 and small-group coaching sessions leveraging Coachbot analytics and student performance data to identify obstacles, establish ambitious targets, and maintain accountability for execution
• Facilitating structured life-skills workshops designed for mastery using authentic examples from your own elite background, then evaluating mastery via Alpha's Test2Pass system
• Establishing the campus culture each morning through focused sessions that reinforce high-performance standards across the student body
• Monitoring student progress continuously and modifying coaching approaches based on data rather than intuition
• Developing trusted mentorship relationships with students and families through consistent high standards and documented motivation strategies
  
  

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Delivering lessons, creating curriculum, or evaluating assignments — Alpha's AI-powered academic system manages instruction; you manage motivation
• Presenting to a traditional classroom of 30 students (your work involves intensive coaching in small settings, not mass instruction)
• Supervising other employees or pursuing an administrative career path (this role focuses on direct student influence, not organizational management)
• Attending faculty meetings or dealing with institutional bureaucracy (your time remains concentrated on students)
• Compromising standards to achieve targets (if a student achieved 99%, your role is to identify what prevented 100%)
  
  

Academic Coach Key Responsibilities

Drive exceptional student motivation, growth, and life-skill mastery at Alpha's highest-expectation campuses.

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• At least one instance of exceptional achievement in a highly selective, globally recognized domain (examples: national or international competition medals, top-tier university with distinction, highly selective firm or fellowship, elite performing arts institution, or founding and scaling a successful venture)
• At least 3 years of experience in student coaching, youth mentoring, athletic coaching, or leadership roles where you measurably raised others' performance
• Willing to work in-person at an Alpha campus in Santa Barbara, CA; Santa Monica, CA; San Francisco, CA; Greenwich, CT; Boston, MA; or New York City, NY (relocation support provided)
• Legal right to work in the United States
  
  

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Background in elite competitive athletics (varsity D1, national team, or professional level) with experience coaching or mentoring younger athletes
• Experience in high-accountability environments like management consulting, investment banking, or military leadership
• Track record of youth development through mentoring in non-academic settings (community organizations, after-school programs, sports camps)
• Comfort presenting to and building trust with high-expectation families paying premium private school tuition
  
  

About Alpha

Want to join a learning rebellion that’s transforming the traditional classroom?

Alpha School is on a mission to reshape education with a bold approach that harnesses AI to accelerate learning and unleash student potential.

They don’t play by the old rules.

Alpha is creating a new paradigm where students master core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up time for hands-on, passion-driven learning that truly prepares them for the real world.

Alpha School is rewriting the rules of education.

Sounds too good to be true? It’s not.

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 $75 USD/hour, which equates to $150,000 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-5740-US-SantaMon-AcademicCoach