Senior Product Engineer (San Francisco)

Sr. Product Engineer, New Products

At Ello, our mission is to maximize the potential of all children. Our first product, Read with Ello, is an AI reading teacher that listens to children read out loud. Ello uses speech recognition to help them when they get stuck, makes up stories using generative AI, and inspires a love for reading.

We're now building on the success of Read with Ello and putting together the pieces of the world's first complete AI teacher for all children. Together, we believe we can close the primary school education gap worldwide.

Ello has been recognized on Fortune's Change the World and Time's 2024 Best Inventions lists. We are well-funded, backed by world-class investors, and ready to recruit new talent to help us achieve our vision.

Ello is a rapidly growing, Series A startup focused on revolutionizing the way children learn and interact with technology. You will work directly with Ello's Co-founder & CTO, Catalin Voss, on a small team.

About the Role

We're looking for a strong Sr. Product Engineer, New Products to independently own the build-out of learning activities as part of Ello's next-generation AI tutoring apps. You will bridge the gap between product development and engineering to own features from conception to playtest, at times acting as your own product manager, and at times collaborating closely with our product team. You'll be part of a small team responsible for bringing Ello's tutoring AI to life through agent control, character development, and game interactions. You pay attention to details and thrive on building products that delight users.

You can work full-stack across multiple programming languages, build chains, etc. Learning another language doesn't feel daunting at this point. You have experience with or curiosity about GenAI pipelines. On the backend, you're able to write performant Python code and handle complex I/O pipelines. On the frontend, you're capable of building a UI from scratch using existing component libraries (Flutter & React) or implementing pixel-perfect layouts in collaboration with a designer.

We welcome candidates from all backgroundsmobile engineering, machine learning, or design & productbut prioritize strong technical foundations and demonstrated speed in shipping. As an ideal candidate, you've built and shipped software products end-to-end in the past, whether through a project you championed, an impressive side project, or as a founder. We'd love to hear about those in the interview!

Responsibilities

• Own and build features end-to-end, from concept to delivery
• Build agent-based AI pipelines, interfacing with ML engineers working on core models (e.g., speech recognition pipeline)
• Act as a bridge between product design and engineering, moving between UX/UI and technical problem-solving
• Develop and integrate front-end components for mobile and web platforms, leveraging existing design systems and brand guidelines
• Take whatever steps are necessary to go from product conception to playtest

Required Experience

Engineering:

• Excellent production-grade engineering & debugging skills across backend, ML, and mobile frontend
• Experience with Flutter, native Android (Java/Kotlin), or iOS (Swift/ObjC)
• Experience with ML tooling and GenAI tools (understanding multimodal models and communication with ML engineers)
• Some experience with GenAI models & pipelines, including human eval infrastructure
• Familiarity with Git flow
• Basic data science skills to analyze your own product insights
• Familiarity with infrastructure setup, CI, and production workflows

Design & Product:

• High attention to detail, especially regarding character expressions and backgrounds affecting emotional impact
• Bias to action in product building: creating from nothing and transforming chaos into order
• Ability to work within existing design systems and brand standards
• Cross-functional skills, possibly with engineering from a design/product background or vice versa
• Familiarity with project management and collaborative tools

Nice to Have Experience

• Game development experience
• Experience as a product manager or owning features/components
• Deep understanding of mobile app architecture, design patterns, and performance optimization
• Experience designing products for children

We Look for Candidates Who

• Have something to teach us
• Are proud of their work and products
• Want to impact child development at scale
• Take initiative and ownership
• Communicate openly and empathetically
• Exemplify integrity
• Seek meaningful relationships at work

Reasons to Join Our Team

• Dive into AI and interactive learning
• Create engaging educational experiences for children worldwide
• Join a team committed to excellence

Ello is a public benefit corporation on a mission to maximize the potential of all children. We are around 45 people, headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in So Paulo, Nairobi, and New York.

Our team has expertise in AI, K-12 education, and child development from institutions like Stanford, Berkeley, Google, Apple, and more. We are part of Y Combinator's W20 batch and funded by notable investors.

We value diversity and inclusion, ensuring our team reflects the communities we serve. We are committed to creating an environment where everyone can be their best selves, contribute their strengths, and develop new skills. We believe in working hard and having fun to achieve impactful results.

At Ello, diversity is a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on any basis and assess skills and experience directly in our interviews.