Employment Programming Lead

About Pursuit

Our mission is to create economic transformation. By training low-income adults to launch and advance careers as software engineers, we help our Fellows go from earning $18,000 to over $90,000 starting salary on average, adding an estimated $2M in lifetime earnings. Pursuit partners with leading companies like Blackstone, USV, Citi, Peloton, and Uber to employ Fellows in career-defining engineering roles and supports them with on-the-job training to ensure potential translates to performance. Since 2013, Pursuit has created ~$1B in total lifetime wage gains, creating lasting economic mobility that spans generations. 

Pursuit’s proven solution is built on two interconnected components: training (which includes community development, Core pre-job training, and Commit on-the-job training) and a financial product (known as Bond). However, growing training alone will not meet the magnitude of need nor solve new societal challenges ahead. The typical expectation is to expand our training to other cities, but this will not come anywhere close to creating good jobs for millions of low-income Americans. Instead, our strategy for scaled impact is to evolve our financial product and create tools for other organizations, jobs, and places. We believe that this will not only create good jobs for millions of low-income Americans but will also generate a new trillion-dollar market directly tied to results in the long term.

We are One Big Team

The passionate and collaborative team at Pursuit gives its all to achieve our mission. And it’s not just staff. We work with employer partners that love hiring our Fellows because they are so well prepared, ranging from big financial firms to scrappy startups, and everything in between. We also activate and engage hundreds of volunteers that come from all areas of the tech industry. These experts and professionals help keep our curriculum fresh and our standards for achievement high by participating in our admissions process, as well as program-specific activities such as interview training, DemoDays, Hackathons, and Capstone projects. 

About the Role

Pursuit is seeking an engaging and enthusiastic individual for our newly created Employment Programming Lead opportunity. Pursuit’s Employment function is responsible for the success of our open market jobs strategy, one of the two organizational strategies to drive employment outcomes for Pursuit Fellows: 1) open market jobs 2) committed jobs (enterprise sales contracts with employer customers). Open market jobs have historically represented ~70% of Pursuit jobs. 

The Employer Programming Lead assumes the responsibility of developing high quality programming to further strengthen our Fellows' communal ties to Pursuit and ultimately up-skill their job search capabilities. Through the development of a holistic communications strategy, the alignment of module themes, the integration of industry assets and the overall development of new and consistent programming this role will be absolutely instrumental in the success of our Fellows' initial entrance and re-entry into their new career path as engineers. 

Reporting to the VP of Employment, the Employment Programming Lead will lead the development of a holistic employment developmental experience for our Fellows.

As the Employment Programming Lead you will: 

• Design programming for Employment Fellows to increase competitiveness on the job market and drive engagement and activity levels (e.g., job application & networking volumes)
• Integrate programming, guest speakers, and project work to expose Fellows to selected themes over the course of each module (e.g., AI, crypto, cyber, etc.) 
• Build and manage full calendar of Employment programming, including guest speakers and networking events 
• Conceive and implement Employment communication strategy across all relevant stakeholders (e.g., Fellows, Employers, volunteers, staff)
• Redefine ‘first job experience’ including process, communication, training, and gong ceremony

What you need to be considered for Employment Programming Lead role: 

• 5-7 years of experience designing programming for employees or adult learners, including both conceiving the broad programming strategy, building out programming for individual sessions, and leaning-on subject matter experts to build out technical content 
• Strong program management skills, including coordinating with a variety of internal and external stakeholders 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience adapting communications to varied audiences
• Exposure to and understanding of critical technical and behavioral skills required for successful Software Engineering job searches
• Experience applying a data-driven approach to developing and measuring cross-functional initiatives
• Experience with or interest in working directly with adults from underserved communities. Someone who views differences between individuals (race, gender, age, cultural heritage, physical ability, education and lifestyle) as an asset and demonstrates an appreciation of the diversity within the Pursuit community

Where you’ll work: 

• You will work full-time from our Long Island City office, with some work from home flexibility as needed. 

Salary & Benefits:

The salary range for this role is $110,000-$140,000 annually.

The compensation range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted.  If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.

Pursuit offers: 

• Great culture where transparency, respect, teamwork, and kindness are valued
• Competitive compensation in base, plus bonus and a full benefits package
• 401k Match
• Unlimited PTO and an all-Pursuit summer break the last week of August and a week-long holiday the last week of December
• Flexible, hybrid work schedule with catered lunches once a week and delicious snacks
• An opportunity to work at the intersection of tech and social impact, and make a direct impact on the communities of those we serve.

Pursuit values diversity: 

Our team has a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and we value the richness that diversity brings to our organization. We welcome new perspectives and affirm that all employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, age, familial or marital status, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuit is an equal opportunity employer.