The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The vision of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Program (USP) works to ensure all students in the U.S. have access to educational opportunities, from Pre-K to postsecondary, that enable them to develop the knowledge, skills, and agency needed thrive as adults and contribute to their communities. Our goal is to make sure more students are on track to obtain a postsecondary credential with labor market value such that race/ethnicity and income are no longer predictors of student success.

Within USP, the Pathways strategy works to support all students—particularly Black, Latino, and Indigenous students and students from low-income backgrounds—to access the learning opportunities, mentorship, and navigation supports to transition successfully from high school to postsecondary education, and then acquire credentials of value and gain professional skills, agency, and social capital needed to thrive in the workforce.

Our culture shapes our choices about what we do and how we do it. We believe that energized people, working well together, fueled by great leadership in an inclusive environment can do extraordinary things. We expect foundation employees to intentionally embody our core values: optimism, collaboration, rigor, innovation, and inclusion.

Your Role

You develop and manage a portfolio of investments (grants and contracts) to advance strategy goals related to improving College and Career Advising. You collaborate with colleagues and the broader field to develop and execute an investment strategy that brings to bear the power of data and technology to help improve efficacy and scalability of evidence-based advising and navigational approaches.

What You’ll Do

• Negotiate and manage a complex portfolio of program-related grants and contracts that advance solutions from early-stage development, validation, commercialization, and implementation at scale.
• Translate a multi-year “desired student advising experience” into a target product profile and development roadmap for College and Career Advising software providers
• Foster a user-centered design approaches to help understand incentives for and needs of end users, institutional decision makers, practitioners, developers, distributors, funders, and policy makers in ways that improve the impact of the priority solutions.
• Identify and fund new technologies (including AI) that improve College and Career Advising functionality, usability, and efficacy both for Advisors and for student’s direct use
• Innovate with districts to ensure quality professional development and process changes that can be enabled with more effective technology and data tools.
• Identify gaps in current advising product availability and quality to help guide positioning of our grant and contract-funded partners
• Support business model development to ensure grant and contract-funded partners achieve sustainability and can’t support scaled impact
• Help catalyze additional sources of capital, including philanthropic, public, and private funding that contribute to the scaling of innovation and the growth and the sustainability of proven solutions.
• Manage collaborative and trusting partner relationships in ways that ensure productive feedback loops between partners and the foundation around shared goals.
• Provide technical guidance and insights to colleagues cross the U.S. program on research and development related topics in education, with an emphasis on advising and navigational systems
• Review letters of inquiry and grant proposals and provide clear, concise, and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding.
• Represent the foundation to key program-related external constituencies, as appropriate, on committees related to area of expertise and responsibilities of the position.
• Support inclusive culture through modeling behaviors and actions; raise issues in a timely fashion to appropriate partners.

Your Experience

• A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience demonstrated experience.
• Extensive demonstrated experience in research and development and product management of relevant college and career advising interventions that impact conditions for student success.
• Experience leading research initiatives or design projects in education.
• Experience leading complex initiatives with budget responsibility at the institutional or organizational level.
• Experience in development and distribution of education products or services; venture capital or private equity investing; venture philanthropy or impact investing; management consulting; education entrepreneurship; education program management; education research.
• Experience with grant design/development and management with an investor’s approach.
• Knowledge of inclusive user centered design processes, research and evidence building methodologies, and study design.
• Strong knowledge of state and institutional policy relevant to the design, adoption, and implementation of college and career advising offerings

Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

The salary range for this role is $182,600 to $283,100 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $199,000 to $308,400 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.