Careers at Outschool.org
About Outschool.org
Outschool.org is a nonprofit organization committed to ensuring all families — especially those from historically underserved communities — can access and make the most of education funding programs like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), microgrants, and other direct-to-family funding initiatives. Through tools, resources, and personalized support, we help families navigate their educational options with confidence.
Since 2021, we’ve supported tens of thousands of families and partnered with over 40 community organizations and multiple state agencies to deploy more than $100M in education funding directly to families.
You may recognize our for-profit sister organization, Outschool.com. Our work in the education sector is often aligned and complimentary but we operate independently.
What It’s Like to Work at Outschool.org
We honor rest and real life. Our generous pay and unlimited time off reflect a belief that rest fuels the work. Most folks take 6+ weeks off each year, no guilt attached.
We trust each other deeply. You'll have room to lead, explore, and stretch without micromanagement. Self-direction is the norm, not the exception.
We show up with open hands. Titles and hierarchy matter less than presence, thoughtfulness, and the willingness to do what needs doing. Everyone rolls up their sleeves.
We build for belonging. Our work is rooted in care for BIPOC families and communities navigating systems not designed for them. That means humility, listening, and evolving — always.
We’re here for the swirl. If you need a roadmap with mile markers, this isn’t your place. The work shapeshifts. That’s the point. We learn as we go, and we love that.
Our culture is warm, messy, and human. We laugh a lot. We drop the occasional f-bomb. We’re more “voice notes and gifs” than memos and protocols.
Play is part of the practice. Our retreats aren’t strategy marathons — they’re about fun, food, movement, connection, and playing full out together.
Curiosity is sacred. We ask good questions, follow hunches, and know that creativity blooms when rules take a back seat.
You’ll thrive here if... you’re values-rooted, flexible, collaborative, and excited to co-create something that’s never been done before.
You probably won’t love it if... you crave predictability, prefer formality, or feel safest with lots of structure and clearly drawn lines.
OPEN POSITIONS
Contract Developer
Part-time | Remote | Outschool.org
About Outschool.org
Outschool.org is a nonprofit organization committed to ensuring all families — especially those from historically underserved communities — can access and make the most of education funding programs like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), microgrants, and other direct-to-family funding initiatives. Through tools, resources, and personalized support, we help families navigate their educational options with confidence.
Since 2021, we’ve supported tens of thousands of families and partnered with over 40 community organizations and multiple state agencies to deploy more than $100M in education funding directly to families.
The Opportunity
We're looking for a part-time contract developer to handle the steady stream of small, high-impact work that keeps our platforms healthy and our product improving. This includes bug fixes, data pipeline issues, triage, and minor feature requests. This is ongoing, continuous development work — not a single project with a defined end date.
The Work
Much of your work will be on the data side. We run Python ETL pipelines that ingest education data from state sources, transform and enrich it, and sync it to Airtable. Many of the issues we deal with — including ones that show up as frontend bugs — originate in these pipelines. You'd be debugging pipeline runs, extending or adjusting data transforms, updating configs for new states or data sources, and writing scripts for data cleanup when needed.
You'd also pick up frontend bug fixes and small feature work. Our web applications are built with modern JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and consume JSON data synced from Airtable via Node.js scripts and GitHub Actions. We're currently planning a stack modernization toward a canonical Postgres database and SvelteKit on the frontend — you may be involved in early phases of that work.
In general, the work involves picking up a ticket, understanding the problem, and shipping a fix — often within the same day or two for a bug, or a week for a feature build.
Skills & Experience
Must-haves:
Python proficiency — scripting, data transformation, ETL pipelines. This is where the most immediate and ongoing need is. You'll be working in a config-driven pipeline with generators, transforms, and sync logic.
NoSQL comfort — our frontend data layer uses document-style data stores.
Solid modern JavaScript — browser JS, HTML/CSS fundamentals, and comfort reading/extending Node.js scripts.
Self-sufficiency — able to receive a modest codebase orientation and dive in.
Comfort with unconventional codebases — our stack includes YAML-driven pipeline configs, Airtable as a data layer, and GitHub Actions for orchestration. It's functional and well-documented, but it's not a conventional framework.
Nice-to-haves:
Svelte or SvelteKit
LLM API experience (particularly with structured output, classification tasks, and thinking about output reliability)
Postgres
Experience with Airtable (API, pyairtable, or similar)
Familiarity with GitHub Actions and CI/CD workflows
Experience with Google geocoding and search APIs
EdTech or nonprofit sector experience
Schedule & Availability
Estimated commitment: 10–15 hours/week
Consistent Monday–Friday availability required — daily work not expected, but you need to be reachable and responsive on weekdays
24-hour response time on new requests — when something comes in, we need confidence it'll be looked at within a business day
Predictable, recurring schedule preferred — set hours on set days works better for us than ad hoc availability
Example First Tasks
These are representative of what you'd pick up in your first couple of weeks after a brief codebase orientation:
New client pipeline config — Clone an existing state's YAML config, set up column mappings for a new CSV format, and adjust transform settings for the new data source.
Field protection bug — A field that should be locked after QA approval is getting overwritten on sync. Trace the issue and fix the condition.
New generator or transform — Add a specialty keyword mapping or state-specific rule following existing patterns in the pipeline.
Ad-hoc data import – A client needs us to upsert listings from a CSV outside our usual data shape. Work with the existing system to import or write a quick script to get the job done.
Frontend filter bug — A filter isn't returning correct results for a vendor category. Figure out whether it's a data problem or a JS bug, and fix it.
Sync script update — Add a new field to the Node.js sync script that pulls from Airtable and outputs JSON for the frontend.
Working With Us
Tools: GitHub, Linear (issue tracking), Slack
Team: You'd work most directly with our Director of Digital Operations and Senior Engineer for prioritization and context
Communication: We’re async-first but happy to chat when useful
Onboarding: We'll walk you through the architecture, data flow, and deployment process for the areas you'll be working in — from there, we expect you to be self-directed
Culture: We care about the work and mission, and keep things playful. We ship good enough over perfect, but we care about doing it right, not just fast.
Logistics
Contract type: Independent contractor (1099)
Duration: Ongoing engagement, initially month-to-month with mutual option to extend
Rate: To be discussed — open to hourly or weekly retainer
Start: As soon as the right person is identified