Jobs at GreatSchools

Parents voted GreatSchools the Best Parenting/Family Site in the 2007 People's Voice Webby Awards. Our site was visited by more than 30 million people last year, and our school information can be also be found on the Web's top sites, including Yahoo!, MSN, Family.com, LATimes.com and SFGate.com.

Unless otherwise specified, all of our open positions are headquartered in our San Francisco, CA office. Sorry, we do not offer relocation assistance.

We are an equal opportunity employer and actively seek to recruit a diverse workforce.

Positions Available:

Online Editorial Director

Data Project Manager

Interaction Designer

Chief Financial Officer (part-time)

Online Editorial Director

Leading a team of writers, video producers and editors, the online editorial director at GreatSchools will define the strategy for creating editorial content that inspires parents to be effectively involved in their children's education.

The online editorial director is responsible for managing the design and production of all content on the GreatSchools.net Web site. The successful candidate will possess strong editorial content development, writing and management skills, as well as a passion for PreK-12 education issues and an understanding of the needs of parents as they support their child's educational success. The candidate will also have experience in social marketing -using marketing techniques to garner widespread attention and influence people's behavior for social good.

This position is a key member of GreatSchools' executive management team and reports to the Chief Operating Officer.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership for the development of editorial content on the GreatSchools Web site and its email newsletters; take responsibility for developing content that is accurate, interesting, trustworthy, and that moves parents to action.
• Partner with the CEO/COO to determine editorial strategy and the position of GreatSchools on education issues.
• Develop an editorial calendar; assign, edit and produce relevant, credible content for newsletters and Web site, including text and video.
• Manage and develop the editorial talents of a quality team of in-house and freelance editors and writers; inspire and guide their efforts to learn more about education issues; recruit additional staff as needed.
• Write and edit materials for target audiences integrating compelling and creative text, still images, audio and video-file components, and links to relevant Internet resources into an appealing and thoughtful online package.
• Collaborate with the product management team to identify user needs and interests, and ensure content is optimized for search.
• Work with the business development team to plan, negotiate and execute content-licensing deals to bring new content to the Web site and email newsletters.
• Work with team to ensure content quality. Work with analytics team to track metrics that demonstrate improvements in content quality (unique, user frequency, duration)
• Ensure process for reviewing and responding to content-related user feedback.
• Track competitive landscape.

Job Requirements:

• 5+ years of writing and editing experience, including a minimum of 3 years of editorial experience in an online content-driven environment, preferably one that is parent or consumer focused. Demonstrated ability to write for a broad audience, including synthesizing complex issues so that non-experts can understand them.
• A familiarity with and interest in education data and knowledge of PreK-12 education issues. The ideal candidate is well-informed about topics such as parent involvement, school choice, No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, education funding, and the challenges of recruiting and retaining high quality teachers.
• Editorial planning; experience discerning customer needs and guiding editorial development for a consumer-oriented media organization.
• Editorial management; an effective advocate for the editorial team who is also a demonstrated leader with experience recruiting, managing and developing in-house editors and freelance writers.
• Knowledge and success at managing large amounts of content on the Web to facilitate an excellent user experience.
• Comfortable with blogging platforms, social media and the Internet in general.
• A track record of implementing strategies that result in high usage and frequent return visits.
• Entrepreneurial passion, creativity, initiative and a high level of enthusiasm for the GreatSchools mission.
• Demonstrated ability to excel as a self-starter and a team player.
• Demonstrated success working in a cross-functional environment.
• Experience working with video (shooting and editing) is a plus.
• Experience choosing and/or implementing a content management system is a plus.

How To Apply:

Please email a cover letter, resume and salary requirements to jobs+editdir.gs@greatschools.net, with "Editorial Director" in the subject line. Applications without cover letters will not be considered. No calls please.

Data Project Manager

We are hiring a Data Project Manager to handle all aspects of data acquisition and verification, write descriptions of the data we publish, and manage cross-functional data-related projects.

As part of the Product Management Department, the Data Team is responsible for publishing accurate and timely education data and writing easy-to-understand explanations, which are fundamental to the value GreatSchools provides to the public.

The Data Project Manager will report to the Data Product Manager, and will work directly with several different departments in the organization, particularly the software engineering, editorial and business development teams. This is a hands-on, results-oriented position with the opportunity to contribute a great deal to a small organization.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Become the in-house authority on certain types of education data (e.g., preschools, K-12 school listings, student demographics, teacher credentials, school finance)
• Map out a data strategy for each state and schedule data updates in coordination with other team members
• Acquire data files (usually in Excel), establishing contacts with data providers as needed, and document their content and structure
• Prepare and load directory data through our in-house tools and provide guidance to software engineers as they import the data into the database (this position does not involve any coding)
• Write explanations for each datapoint that are easily understandable to our parent audience
• Conduct thorough QA on the display of data and explanations
• Contribute to additional data-related editorial content, such as articles and newsletters
• Provide support to the Data Product Manager and Business Development team on partnerships that involve data licensing
• Work closely with engineering to manage other data-related projects as needed, such as adding new data types and improving the presentation of existing data
• Assist the Data Product Manager in developing strategies for streamlining the data handling process
• Manage ongoing communications with parents and school officials on data-related issues through our customer-service email application and our online community

Required Experience & Skills:

• Bachelor's degree or higher and 1-3 years of professional experience or strong background/interest in the education data space
• Demonstrable advanced proficiency with Excel, including formulas, filtering and data formatting
• Knowledge of K-12 education space
• Experience writing explanatory text or summarizing complex processes for a non-expert audience
• Mastery of Internet navigation and research
• Ability to work under deadlines and perform complex tasks efficiently and accurately
• Very strong verbal and written communication skills
• Aptitude for project management

Essential Qualities:

• Extremely detail-oriented and organized
• Tech savvy
• Self-starter and productive team member
• Positive work ethic and sense of humor
• Supportive of GreatSchools' mission

Pluses:

• Familiarity with MySQL, Access or other databases
• Experience working in an Internet company
• Propensity for establishing processes and creating efficiencies

How To Apply:

1. Please send a COVER LETTER and RESUME to jobs+dpm.gs@greatschools.net with "Data Project Manager" in the subject line. Resumes submitted without cover letters will not be considered.

2. In your cover letter, be sure to address the following:

• Your experience working with data
• Your experience writing about data or educational issues
• Why you want to work for a nonprofit organization

3. Candidates applying from outside the San Francisco Bay Area must explain their availability for an in-person interview. Please note, we are unable to offer a relocation package.

Interaction Designer

This person will work in cross-functional teams to create interactive designs for high-traffic, advertising-supported consumer web applications. Experience with interface design, information architecture, software application design, and interactive content design is required. A passion for user-centered design and creating intuitive and engaging user interfaces is key for this position.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Work closely with product management and development teams to produce innovative, engaging, and effective designs and interactions that help customers solve problems and locate relevant information.
• Develop information design, user profiles or personas, user task flows, and user experience strategies as needed for complex, data-driven web applications.
• Help ensure quality and effectiveness of visual design by participating in the design process, managing user testing, and collaborating with the development team.
• Create rapid prototypes and mock-ups to validate design concepts with stakeholders and customers.
• Develop style guides and design specifications that developers will use to implement and validate interaction designs.
• Help define multivariant tests and integrate learnings from web analytics into UI development.

Job Qualifications:

• Bacheloris degree in visual design, human factors, interaction design, or related discipline. Advanced degree in Design or HCI a plus.
• 4+ years interaction and visual design experience in web application product design. Experience with interaction design in distributed, open source, and agile development teams is a plus.
• Demonstrated experience in information architecture, interactivity, prototyping for innovative product design.
• Ability to translate business requirements into effective UI solutions, manage the development of usable design standards and visual style guides, identify conflicting design requirements and constructively solve problems for the end-useris best interests.
• Thorough understanding of widgets, controls, and feedback mechanisms used on the web, their appropriate uses and what they communicate to users.
• Extensive knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX.
• Solid presentation skills and experience presenting design scenarios and solutions confidently and credibly to internal stakeholders and executives.
• Ability to manage time and resources on multiple projects with multiple timelines and multiple missions. Ability to deal with changing priorities as needs dictate.
• Experience with running multivariant tests is desirable.
• Experience integrating video and interactive technologies is highly desirable.

How To Apply:

Please send a COVER LETTER and RESUME to jobs-ue@greatschools.net with "Interaction Designer" in the subject line.

A portfolio demonstrating interaction design experience is required. Please send a URL in the body of your application.

Chief Financial Officer (part-time)

GreatSchools seeks a part-time results-oriented, entrepreneurial professional with the experience, creativity, drive, and leadership skills to build and manage the financial staff and operations of our rapidly growing organization.

Reporting directly to the COO, the Chief Financial Officer will be a key member of GreatSchools' executive management team and will be responsible for growing and leading all aspects of the Finance organization. The qualified candidate will have demonstrated significant accomplishments as CFO including the ability to roll up his/her sleeves and be hands-on when necessary while being comfortable interacting with our Board, investors, bankers, partners, and employees. Other responsibilities are outlined as follows:

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead effort to create and implement the next generation of GreatSchools' financial processes, systems and staffing to support GreatSchools' rapid growth.
• Create, coordinate, and evaluate the financial programs and supporting information systems of the organization to include budgeting, financial reporting, and conservation of assets.
• Ensure compliance with local, state, and federal tax reporting and auditing requirements as well as funder requirements for grants.
• Coordinate the preparation of financial statements, financial reports, special analyses, and information reports.
• Establish and maintain appropriate internal control safeguards.
• Develop budget and forecasting models for future growth & planning purposes.
• Interact with other managers to provide consultative support to planning initiatives through financial and management information analyses, reports, and recommendations.
• Integrate financial & budgetary operations into the management of program activities and creating financial metrics for programs.
• Manage the cost allocation by department and program. Keep track of actual P&L within budget guidelines.
• Analyze cash flow, cost controls, and expenses to guide the President/CEO, the COO and other department managers. Analyze financial statements to pinpoint potential weak areas.
• Research and develop investment policies for efficient cash management and restricted funds management.
• Establish and implement short- and long-range departmental goals, objectives, policies, and operating procedures.
• Recruit, train and motivate department staff.

Job Qualifications:

• Minimum of 15 years of finance/accounting experience, with a minimum of 5+ years in a senior management capacity.
• Experience in financial strategic planning and execution. Knowledge of automated financial and accounting reporting systems, including QuickBooks. Knowledge of federal and state financial regulations. Ability to analyze financial data and prepare financial reports, statements, and projections.
• Demonstrated success building systems and tools to support a fast-paced, growth-oriented organization.
• Knowledge of nonprofit tax and status issues.
• Excellent analytical, interpersonal, organizational, verbal and written skills.
• Bachelor's degree in related field required; CPA or advanced degree in finance, accounting, or non-profit management strongly preferred
• Ability to manage and to motivate a team to produce quality work within tight timeframes and simultaneously manage several projects.
• Passion for the mission of GreatSchools with a strong desire to positively impact the organization.
• Experience in both nonprofit and for-profit sectors is a plus.

Salary DOE. This is a part-time (20-30 hours per week) position located in San Francisco.

How To Apply:

Please email a cover letter, resume and salary requirements to jobs-cfo@greatschools.net, with "Chief Financial Officer" in the subject line. Applications without cover letters will not be considered. No calls please.