Head of IT

About Primer

Fixing our K-12 education system is a civilizationally-important problem. We believe that all of our problems — including the ones that dominate the headlines — are downstream of education.

We have a simple thesis on how to solve it: empower 1,000's of educators to launch microschools in their communities.

We believe the historical tradeoff between price (tuition) and quality is a false dichotomy.

PrimerOS automates and eliminates much of the costs of traditional schools. Microschools have a structural advantage — asset-light real estate — which means much lower capex and opex. You put it together, and you get something that's never existed before: a world-class education that's accessible to normal American families and can rapidly scale.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced Head of IT to own the full scope of IT at Primer: campus IT, corporate IT, and security.

You’ll build and lead this function from the ground up — balancing the needs of dozens of campuses, a distributed HQ team, and fast-growing operations.

This isn’t a “keep the lights on” role. IT at Primer is unusually complex and central to our mission. You’ll run corporate IT for a distributed HQ, manage physical IT for a rapidly expanding network of schools, and — because we build our own full-cycle software (“PrimerOS”) — work directly with Product to shape the roadmap and architect the systems to unlock scale.

Responsibilities

• Strategy & Leadership

  • Define and execute Primer’s IT strategy across campuses and HQ.

  • Partner with Real Estate and Facilities to build scalable processes that let us open new campuses quickly and operate reliably at scale.

  • Establish IT as a single point of accountability for all corporate and campus technology.

  • Recruit & lead a small but high-leverage IT team.

• Campus IT

  • Manage various partners to guarantee reliable internet, networking, and device setup in every campus across our multi-state portfolio.

  • Manage Ed-Tech apps, including rostering, support and diagnosing internal issues.

  • Own the execution of recurring, high-touch assessments and Ed-Tech processes (e.g. NWEA MAP testing).

  • Partner closely with our Product and Engineering teams to resolve internal product questions, bring forward real user feedback, and shape the roadmap to improve the employee support experience.

• Corporate IT

  • Manage employee devices (procurement, deployment, and lifecycle).

  • Own HQ employee experience: onboarding/offboarding, account setup, troubleshooting, access.

  • Administer and secure SaaS tools (Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, etc.).

  • Ensure strong org-wide security posture in partnership with the Engineering Team.

Qualifications

• Significant IT leadership experience in a high-growth, multi-site environment (typically 4+ years).

• Deep background in both corporate IT and site/network administration.

• Experience supporting remote teams and physical campuses/offices simultaneously.

• Strong security expertise; comfortable implementing frameworks and best practices.

• Hands-on technical skills with a bias for action.

• Proven ability to design processes and systems that scale rapidly without sacrificing reliability or simplicity.

• Comfortable with up to 20% travel to campuses required.

• Bonus: experience in K–12 or education environments.

If this sounds like you, fill out the application below with a bit about yourself and we'll take it from there!