Senior Program Officer, Early Stage Innovation

The Foundation
We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we're committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.
The Team
K-12 Education
Today, the vision for the Foundation's K-12 Education team is to ensure that all students in the US have access to educational opportunities, from Pre-K to postsecondary, that enable them to develop the knowledge, skills, and agency needed thrive as adults and contribute to their communities. The team's goal is to make sure more students are on track to obtain a postsecondary credential with labor market value such that race/ethnicity and income are no longer predictors of student success. To this end, the K-12 team will be focusing investments on ensuring that all students can master, enjoy, and persist in mathematics.
Over its history, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested heavily in research and development to provide educators with tools, strategies, and platforms that empower them to better serve Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds. This work has included, but has not been limited to:
1.Developing and evaluating innovative curricular and instructional approaches to student learning needs
2.Exploring the interplay between social emotional learning and executive functions on student learning
3.Working with early-stage developers to test products in anticipation of scaling efforts, and
4.Exploring and developing research practice partnerships to support field-identified research priorities and better understand how students master academic content and thrive.
Your Role
In this role you will strategically develop and manage the K-12 Team's work on early-Stage Innovation. Aligned with the K-12 Education theory of action, this role will manage the research and development in areas that seek to create promising insights to support math outcomes. Our team focuses not only on academic proficiency, but also on the motivation, engagement, and persistence critical for success in math. We support R&D efforts that ultimately lead to practical and scalable solutions that serve students, particularly Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty, and the teachers that support them. Given the early-Stage Innovation focus of the role, it will be critical to both take and manage risk in pursuit of outsized outcomes. This role will also have an emphasis on innovative products that use emerging technologies (especially artificial intelligence) to drive student outcomes. This includes potentially supporting math EdTech product development with a specific focus on underserved students, R&D of underlying technologies (e.g. open source LLM development, training, and benchmarks), and supporting research to understand whether these products and technologies work, for whom, and under what conditions. As part of this work, this role will manage a portfolio of grants and contracts requiring investment management, monitoring, and evaluation skills. As a key advisor on strategy initiatives, this role will also be expected to contribute to the continued development of the team's strategic vision, while partnering closely with team leadership to set the overall strategy and goals for the team.
What You'll Do

• Create and manage a strategic portfolio of investments that improve the quality of math solutions by identifying early-stage products and supporting their research and development through rigorous gating of investments and the use of creative investment vehicles that position the products and organization for ultimate success in the marketplace.
• Analyze and synthesize emerging insights from both research, product, and technology innovation landscape to identify and track emerging promising trends and Early Stage products that have the potential to transform math outcomes for Black and Latino students.
• Manage partnerships and collaborations (formal and informal) with other organizations, including philanthropic funders, who are conducting or investing in early-stage education research and development.
• Create and manage investments that design and pilot radically different future designs for math education in the U.S. that will impact priority students over the next 10-20 years.
• Participate in K-12 team-wide efforts to demonstrate advances in artificial intelligence and incorporate issues of equity, ethics, privacy, and bias into grantmaking.
• Work closely with investment managers across teams to create and manage investments in common partners in order to improve product quality and dissemination of public goods that are useful to priority partner groups (including solution developers, educators, and researchers) in priority focus states, as identified by the K-12 Strategy.
• Engage with other entities (non-profit, for-profit etc.) seeking to translate insights from research into products and services
• Negotiate, implement, and manage complex portfolio of grants or performance-based contracts. Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals and provide clear, concise and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding.
• Consult with grantees and other partners to improve impact of projects and ensure grants are meeting strategy goals. This may include site visits, providing operational guidance and convening meetings of key collaborators.
• Develop, manage, resource, and implement a program that aligns with foundation strategy and is operationally coordinated with other foundation programs. Contribute to the design of new strategies, collaborations and implementation plans to ensure long-term sustainability and impact.
• Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.

Your Experience

• Advanced degree with 7+ years of experience, or equivalent experience. Experience in K-12 and/or higher education.
• Experience with K-12 education technology product development, ideally using advanced technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence) in the context of an early-stage product.
• Recognized internally and externally by the professional community as an expert within a particular specialized field.

R&D Team Core Knowledge & Expertise

• Fluency with education research and data principles, including FERPA, data interoperability, and evaluation and research types
• Knowledge of research and initiatives (e.g., major US education research funding streams, including Institute for Education Sciences and National Science Foundation)
• Knowledge of inclusive R&D practices
• Experience leading product and solution development and improvement cycles in core curriculum, interventions, and/or formative assessments
• Able to facilitate cross-sector partnerships (research, practitioners, developers)
• Adherence to rigorous gating criteria for advancing work through the R&D pipeline

K-12 Team Core Knowledge & Expertise

• Exhibited commitment to and ability around inclusive design and equity-centered approaches to investing (using USP Equity Guiding Principles)
• Exhibited commitment to and ability around engaging organizations and leaders proximate to the work
• Math content and pedagogical knowledge or ability to access
• Ability to remain focused on the long-term vision and invest in orgs that can complete the mission (vs. us directing the day-to-day work)
• Ability to manage complex partnerships (internal and external)
• Ability to synthesize large volumes of information into clear recommendations and decisions
• Curious, continuous learner mentality that can build on the strengths of others to achieve optimal impact
• Proven ability to lead and influence others in a constructive manner and to build and sustain collaborative relationships.
• Able to effectively synthesize information to reach diverse audiences and build consensus.

Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.
The salary range for this role is $182,600 to $283,100 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences where our offices are located, in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Boston (Cambridge). The range for this role in these locations is $199,000 to $308,400 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission and new hires are typically brought into the organization at a salary between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate's job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.
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Hiring Requirements
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Candidate Accommodations
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Inclusion Statement
We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion - of voices, ideas, and approaches - and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.
All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.