Learning Scientist at Alxafrica — Remote

## About ALX Africa

We achieve this by:

• Providing young professionals with access to the most in-demand tech skills that will power the future.
• Empowering the next generation of technology innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders through challenging, real-world coursework.
• Building a lifelong, impactful community of tech professionals that support them at all stages of their career journey.

Our impact thus far:

• 347k+ graduates since 2020
• 257k youth in work
• 31k youth starting own ventures
• 60k youth in jobs created by entrepreneurs

## Role Summary

ALX teaches at scale across Africa, and Project A is the AI layer of that: AI profiles and onboards learners, guides them through projects, and a competency engine decides what they should learn next. Every one of those products embeds pedagogical assumptions — about scaffolding, feedback, productive struggle, and what an AI guide should and shouldn’t do for a learner. The Learning Scientist makes those assumptions explicit, grounds them in modern learning science, and tests them. There is a proper handover: the role is currently held by a team member who transitions out in about six months, so you overlap with her rather than start cold.

You will work in collaboration with Anthropic Engineers, a team of AI engineers, product managers and data scientists to design world class learning experiences.

## Specific Responsibilities

### Pedagogical Direction

• Guide the pedagogical decisions across the platform — input at design time, learning-efficacy judgment at eval time.
• Adapt and interpret the ALX learning framework so the platform is informed by real pedagogy rather than decorated with it.

### Experimentation & Product Collaboration

• Design experiments against the platform’s core pedagogical assumptions, run with our experimentation function — for example, is the tutor guidance helping learners or crutching them?
• Assist in designing and evaluating the AI products alongside engineers, translating learning science into concrete product decisions.

## Skill Requirements - Essential

• Learning science: solid grounding — you can cite and apply modern frameworks, not just intuitions from teaching.
• AI literacy: you understand what LLM-based tools can and can’t do, well enough to co-design them with engineers.
• Experiment design: hypotheses, measures, and enough methodological rigour to test learning claims honestly.
• Desirable (not required): prior EdTech product work; familiarity with competency frameworks or knowledge tracing; experience with African education contexts.

## Essential Traits for Success

• Your instinct is to challenge the team’s assumptions, including the technical lead’s — that’s the job.
• You translate across disciplines without friction and enjoy being embedded in an engineering team.
• You can describe a pedagogical belief you changed your mind about, and the evidence that did it.

## Person Specification/Attributes

• Courage: Willingness to speak up, challenge the status quo, and embrace new challenges.
• Humility: Openness to learning, seeking help when needed, and a focus on serving others.
• Adventure: A passion for setting ambitious goals, tackling difficult tasks, and finding joy in the journey.
• Initiative: Proactive problem-solving, a sense of ownership, and a willingness to go above and beyond.
• Resilience: The ability to bounce back from setbacks, persevere through challenges, and emerge stronger.

## Employment Type

This role is a full-time position.

## Preferred Time Zones

The preferred time zones are GMT+2.