[Possible Summer Hire] Implementation Manager

Overview

Immersed Games is harnessing the power of video games to empower students to learn and love STEM through authentic problem solving.

Our flagship product, Tyto Online, is a video game where students actively DO science. The student experience includes experiences like examining coral bleaching as an anchoring phenomena for learning about climate change, collecting evidence to determine if a planet is an invasive species, and breeding dragons to learn about genetics.

We are a small, multidisciplinary team that is excited to help build a generation of scientifically passionate and literate students, and our work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and Department of Education. We’re looking for team members enthusiastic about this mission to work alongside us.

What will you do?

Your role can be summed up as: supporting educators in successfully implementing Tyto Online as effectively as possible to achieve their students’ learning goals.

We are an early stage startup, so you’ll be our only Implementation Manager (besides our Founder/CEO), and will work directly with her and our education research & design team. Part of this role can be customized to fit the best candidate, but at its core, here are some things you would be doing:

• You will help on-board new teachers and reduce friction for them, using a scaffolded approach that begins with the basics of getting the game installed and students imported (this may require collaborating with school IT personnel), providing recommendations on implementation, and then using our game’s assessment tools for improving practices and differentiating instruction;
• You will (after ample training!) be able to deliver professional development sessions on using Tyto Online effectively.
• You’ll maintain a high level of client happiness and engagement, using usage data to proactively reach out to administrators and teachers to ensure successful implementation of the product;
• You will build authentic relationships with teachers and administrators that will help us better support them in implementation and have open dialogues about their needs;
• You’ll be the person in the company with the most constant direct line of communication with teachers, which means you’ll be key in bringing what you’ve learned back to the team to collaborate on ways we can improve our product and processes to better improve the experience for all stakeholders.
• You’ll help us make sure we are collecting the measures we need for impact and outcome data. This will be working with the same teachers, but many of them are also signed up to test new content, or help us measure diversity and inclusion effort impacts, etc.

There’s always plenty to do in a startup, so our team shares responsibilities. Depending on your background and interest, there’s some other areas you will be asked to support in more or less. These may include:

• Super techy and like making new media?  Work directly on improving our support and customer implementation systems: building out the Knowledgebase, creating new training videos, and implementing our new step-by-step tutorial system.
• Were you a science teacher or love making lessons? Help us make the teacher guides and collaborate with our team on the new content we’re releasing!
• Something else? A startup is growing and changing all the time, so you get to help define what this role looks like, and how you can help!

Your work will be essential to the success of teachers’ implementations, and therefore students’ learning outcomes and our company’s goals, too. You will also have direct influence on improving our product based on the constant learning you will bring back to the team from working directly with educators.

Location. We value having our in-person team in Buffalo, NY, where we collaborate together. Due to COVID19, our team has been working remote the last year, but we plan on our full team being back in the office on July 1st, based on our local COVID19 vaccine availability.

What are we looking for?

• You are empathetic to the challenges educators experience in serving their communities and improving their teaching practices;
• You care deeply about empowering students’ learning, and are passionate about the role game-based learning can play in supporting this goal;
• You have a background in K-12 education (formal or informal), preferably with a science, STEM, or instructional technology focus, but we are flexible on what exactly this background is as we seek the right person for this unique role;
• You’re an excellent communicator and relationship builder, able to communicate via email, live chat, phone, and video calls;
• You are a flexible thinker and learner who will be able to make customized recommendations based on unique teacher situations;
• You are tech savvy so you can learn our product, create tutorial videos or other needed materials (we can show you how and intro you to tools for this), and present with online training tools;
• You are willing to travel, as needed, to support teachers’ implementations in person (post-COVID), such as for a professional development kick-off with a district.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

What’s it like working with us?

We’re a small team, so we focus on making our collaboration as productive as possible, with minimal meetings disrupting your flow. We have weekly meetings for each team to collaborate and set goals and ~monthly full team meetings to go over larger business objectives.

We’re flexible to the needs of our staff with an open, communicative environment where everyone has access to everyone else on the team. If you have ideas to change processes, policies, or anything else, you just grab Ryan (one of our co-founders) to chat, and we’ve changed things because of this in the past.

We value inclusivity and diversity, and know our product has benefited from LGBTQ team members impacting the design of character creation (no gender choices, just body styles), or members with ADHD giving feedback on UX designs. Also, being more diverse simply makes a company stronger as research shows you’re less likely to have group think. Our Founder/CEO says that nothing is sacred or beyond questioning, and we love when people are willing to just work alongside everyone, including our CEO, as equals.

We’re still small, so there is ample room for growth as our company grows. We always promote from within first if the person is up to the task — which means you could end up creating an entire team around you, if that’s the type of role you’re interested in.

Salary & Benefits

Salary: $50,000 + equity stock options

We’re an early stage startup, so we’re not making the big bucks yet. But our whole Buffalo team currently makes the same amount (yes, you’ll make the same as the CEO); we’re in this together as we hit achievements and grow the company and our own potential. We won’t be only growing this salary at a small rate, we’ll do significant raises as the business finances can support it until we get to market rates and pay everyone what they are really worth. We’re working towards multiple raise goals within the next 12-18 months… directly dependent on fundraising and revenue, actually, so you’ll be able to help there. And of course, you’ll have ownership in the company to benefit on that end, too.

Perks:

• You’ll pay no NY State Income tax, due to our participation in the Startup NY program (when working from our office). This makes your effective pay higher.
• $200/month Health Savings Plan (HSA; company-funded) for healthcare expenses.
• Flex scheduling: make your own schedule and work when it’s best for you; exception for Implementation Manager that it also has to work for our customers!
• 5 weeks of paid holiday/vacation and 1 week of paid sick time per year.
• Paid parental leave.
• Retirement savings plan (401k).

How to Apply

Simply email lindsey@immersedgames.com with your resume or LinkedIn, and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can!