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

• $100,000/year W2 compensation, distributed weekly; full health, dental, and vision coverage starting day one
• On-campus role at an Alpha K-8 school in Scottsdale (Phoenix), AZ; 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) - we provide relocation assistance
  
  

You are not a classroom instructor. You are a motivator.

The most caring thing you can do for a student who reached 99% of their target is to refuse to call it complete. If that principle makes you uneasy, this role is not for you. If it energizes you because holding the standard is how you demonstrate belief in a student's capacity, read on.

At Alpha, academic learning happens through AI-driven applications. No lectures. No textbooks. Half your time is spent facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions on topics like public speaking, focus, and constructive feedback. The other half, you work with students individually or in small groups, analyze their progress via Coachbot data, and drive each one toward 100% completion of their weekly app targets. You will not be reading from a script—workshops provide a framework, but top performers in this role customize them and create new content when gaps emerge.

A successful quarter means every student in your cohort completes their weekly app objectives, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills modules, and 90% report that they love you. Fall short on any of those three metrics and you've missed the mark. In your first year you'll internalize the system; as you demonstrate your ability to maintain standards, you can advance to Lead Guide, where you mentor newer team members while continuing to work directly with students.

If you prefer traditional instruction, want pre-packaged curriculum, or see warmth and rigor as conflicting, this role is not the right fit. If you have experience as a sports coach, camp leader, tutor who wouldn't let a student give up, or performer who could captivate a group of eight-year-olds, the final interview step is 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, focus, feedback, and other transferable competencies, customizing the framework and creating new modules when you identify needs
• Conducting daily individual and small-group coaching sessions that drive every student to 100% of their weekly app targets, leveraging Coachbot data, Alpha's motivation systems (school currency, leaderboards), and your rapport with each student to overcome resistance
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha's mastery-based evaluation) for each life skill, and working with students who don't achieve mastery until they do
• Adjusting your approach across a broad age spectrum, from kindergarteners who thrive on energy and activity to 8th graders who respond to candor and accountability
• Serving as the adult who maintains high expectations and the adult students trust; warmth creates the foundation for challenge, and challenge communicates your confidence in their potential
  
  

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Teaching content at a whiteboard; academic instruction is embedded in the apps, not delivered by you
• Creating curriculum from the ground up; you animate an established framework with energy and narrative
• Passively monitoring students on devices; motivation in this role is active, individualized, and persistent
• Reducing a weekly target to help a student reach it; when a student is behind, the solution is supporting the student, not adjusting the goal
• Marking assignments, running standardized test preparation, or handling parent outreach; Campus Leads manage parent communication, and the other tasks don't exist in this model
  
  

Youth Development Specialist Key Responsibilities

Ensure every student in your K-8 cohort completes their weekly learning targets, achieves mastery in each life skill, and finishes the year reporting that they loved you.

Basic Requirements

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

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Background in youth sports coaching, debate, camp leadership, theater, or after-school programming where you held direct responsibility for motivating students toward measurable goals
• Personal track record of significant achievement (academic, athletic, or professional), demonstrating that holding others to high standards is intrinsic, not performative
• Communication and presentation skills capable of engaging a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without relying on volume
• Proven ability to transform disengaged or reluctant students into engaged contributors
  
  

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-SaltLake-YouthDevelopme.006