Senior Manager

Paper is reimagining how schools support students so that every learner can reach their full potential. Our vision is a world where every student receives timely, personalized, and relevant academic support. We offer a suite of scalable solutions including 24/7 tutoring, writing feedback, math practice, college and career support, and AI-powered instructional tools that provide personalized support to all students, including multilingual learners. Our GROW high-impact tutoring program accelerates learning through targeted small-group instruction, delivers measurable gains in student achievement, and eases teacher workloads. Trusted by 500+ school districts across 40+ states and backed by leading investors including IVP, Sapphire Ventures, Framework Capital, and Reach Capital, we’re pursuing a bold goal: to drive the best academic outcomes for as many students as possible.

Recent articles:

• GROW by Paper Drives 201% Increase in Grade-Level Proficiency in Just 12 Weeks

• GROW by Paper Earns Stanford’s NSSA Tutoring Program Design Badge, Signaling Excellence in Research-Aligned Design

• Paper Appoints Marisa Burkhart as CRO

Job Description

About the Role

We are building the first B2B, in-classroom Voice + Video AI Tutor designed for real-world learning environments. Our system operates in live classrooms—processing noisy audio, interpreting visual signals, and delivering low-latency, safe, pedagogically aligned AI support to educators and students.

We are seeking a Senior AI / Machine Learning Manager to lead a team of 3–5 ML engineers and data scientists building multimodal AI systems that power critical product features across our platform.

This team develops trained models, generative AI systems, and agentic learning assistants that support millions of learners and educators. You will be responsible for defining the technical direction, mentoring the team, and delivering production-ready AI capabilities that operate reliably in complex real-world environments.

This is a high-impact role with significant technical ownership, shaping how AI is embedded into our platform—from early research and experimentation through deployment and continuous optimization.

You will work closely with Product, Data, Platform, and Engineering leaders to bring cutting-edge AI capabilities into classrooms at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of AI-powered product features, including trained models, generative AI systems, and agentic learning assistants.

• Architect systems that support real-time multimodal AI, integrating signals from audio, video, and text to support classroom interactions.

• Guide architecture decisions for LLM orchestration, prompt frameworks, retrieval systems, and agent-based workflows.

• Ensure AI systems meet strict requirements for latency, safety, and reliability in live classroom environments.

• Establish best practices for model development, evaluation, monitoring, and MLOps.

Agentic Learning Systems

• Design and implement agentic AI systems that guide, coach, and teach students through interactive learning experiences.

• Build AI capabilities that support adaptive instruction, classroom assistance, and educator workflows.

• Develop safe, pedagogically aligned AI interactions appropriate for real-world classroom use.

Team Leadership

• Manage and mentor a team of 3–5 ML engineers and data scientists.

• Provide technical coaching, career development, and performance management.

• Foster a culture of ownership, experimentation, and rapid iteration.

• Help scale the AI team through hiring and organizational development.

Project & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Data, and Platform teams to shape the AI roadmap.

• Translate product requirements into technical architectures and execution plans.

• Drive AI initiatives from research and prototyping through production deployment.

AI Quality, Evaluation & Experimentation

• Establish rigorous evaluation frameworks for generative AI and ML systems.

• Implement both automated evaluation pipelines and human-in-the-loop review processes.

• Monitor system performance and continuously improve models through experimentation and feedback loops.

Platform & Infrastructure

• Collaborate with platform and DevOps teams to build scalable AI infrastructure and services.

• Develop reusable tooling for model training, deployment, monitoring, and experimentation.

• Ensure AI systems are cost-efficient, observable, and maintainable at scale.

What We're Looking For

Experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, or a related field.

• 7+ years of experience building production-grade AI/ML systems.

• 2+ years leading or managing ML/AI teams.

• Experience delivering both traditional ML models and generative AI systems in production.

• Experience building multimodal systems involving audio, video, or sensor data.

• Demonstrated expertise in model evaluation, including automated testing and human review protocols.

• Experience operationalizing models using modern MLOps practices.

Technical Skills

• Strong hands-on experience with Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face).

• Experience working with LLMs and AI orchestration frameworks.

• Deep understanding of the end-to-end ML lifecycle, including data pipelines, training, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.

• Familiarity with cloud-native ML infrastructure and distributed systems.

Leadership

• Strong mentorship and people leadership skills.

• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Proven ability to lead teams with clarity, empathy, and accountability.

Delivery

• Track record of delivering production AI systems with measurable user impact.

• Experience managing cross-functional AI initiatives from ideation to production.

• Ability to balance technical innovation with pragmatic execution.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building AI systems in EdTech or education-focused products.

• Experience developing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic systems, or AI copilots.

• Experience working with real-time AI systems (speech, vision, or multimodal pipelines).

• Experience deploying multimodal models involving text, audio, image, or video inputs.

The annual salary range for this position is $195,000 - $220,000 USD or $160,000 - $190,000 CAD, plus equity. Please note that the final offer amount is determined by multiple factors, including geographic location as well as candidate experience, and may vary from the amounts listed above​.

What is it like to work at Paper? You will:

• Be joining a remote-first company with a collaborative, mission-driven culture working together to write the next chapter of Paper!

• Have opportunities to connect in person throughout the year, even while working remotely day-to-day.

• Be part of an exciting new era of growth, with fresh leadership, a bold product vision, and a redefined charter.

• Thrive in a fast-moving, build-from-scratch environment where agility and critical thinking guide decisions, collaboration is built on trust and healthy challenge, and every team member takes ownership to deliver real customer impact and grow every day.

Additional Benefits:

• Comprehensive & competitive compensation, health benefits, retirement plan, stock options, and more.

• In addition to vacation days, we provide Paperites with sick days and 4 extra weeks off - including statutory holidays, Paper Days throughout the year, and a full Paper Week from Dec 25 to Jan 1.

• A $500 stipend to set-up your workspace and $100 monthly stipends to support with on-going workspace needs.

• We support growing families with generous paid parental leave.

• Unlimited access to tutoring and educational support for children of Paper employees.

You’ll be joining a team of mission-driven builders who care deeply about equity in education, and who thrive in a culture of ownership, velocity, and continuous learning. If you’re energized by challenges, inspired by impact, and ready to help lead a high-growth business through its next phase, we’d love to meet you.

We believe diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Paper does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender orientation, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, marital status, or military status.

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