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.

Role overview

We are looking for a Founding Mobile Engineer to own and drive the development of our mobile app. The app will be the primary touchpoint for parents, enabling everything from enrollment to tracking progress to communicating with teachers. You’ll be responsible for architecting, designing, and building a seamless, high-quality mobile experience that brings Apple-level design and performance to education.

Primer has something no other school has: an end-to-end data model of every student, allowing us to both track and project learning velocity. No school—not public, private, or charter—has the ability to understand student progress the way we do. Today, parents can only access this data via web, but we know almost every parent at Primer would prefer to use an iOS or Android app. That’s where you come in. You’ll take this wealth of insights and build a mobile experience that makes it intuitive, delightful, and indispensable for families. This will be one of the most important apps on their phone.

This role is based in San Francisco and is in office 5x per week.

What you’ll do

• Own the mobile experience: Architect, develop, and scale a best-in-class React Native app.

• Define the mobile strategy: Set technical direction and establish best practices for mobile development.

• Ship fast, ship right: Balance speed and quality to deliver high-impact features quickly.

• Work across teams: Collaborate with engineers, product leaders, designers, and educators to build a seamless experience.

• Lay the foundation: Shape the mobile engineering culture and help build the team as we grow.

Tech stack

• Mobile: React Native, TypeScript, GraphQL, Relay

• Backend: NodeJS, Prisma, Postgres

• Web: NextJS, TypeScript, Relay

What we’re looking for

• Passion for education: You have an unbridled passion for fixing the US education system. This work is incredibly hard. But if we succeed, it will be the most fulfilling work of our lives. On the days and weeks that it feels like we’re chewing glass, there are only two things that will get you through: a deep passion for fixing this problem, and looking around and seeing a team that shares that passion. We can guarantee the latter, but only you can guarantee the former.

• End-to-end ownership: You’ve built and shipped mobile apps from scratch with real users.

• Pixel-perfect execution: You obsess over UX, performance, and animations.

• Engineering excellence: You have a strong grasp of fundamentals and experience scaling mobile applications.

• Entrepreneurial mindset: You want to own a core product, make key technical decisions, and drive execution.

• Thrives in ambiguity: You love rolling up your sleeves and figuring out what needs to happen.

$130,000 - $160,000 per year plus equity

Benefits: Generous health, dental, vision, and retirement benefits included.

If this sounds like you, fill out the application below with a bit about yourself and we’ll take it from there! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected].