Customer Support & Automation Lead, Kenya
Our mission at Ello is simple and urgent: Maximize the potential of every child, everywhere.
We’re building the world’s first AI teacher to close that gap: one that listens, speaks, adapts, and inspires, just like the best human educators.
Our first product, Read with Ello, is already helping tens of thousands of kids each week learn to read. It listens as they read aloud, offers support when they stumble, and generates magical, personalized stories using generative AI. It works—and kids love it.
Now, we’re scaling that success into something even bigger: a complete AI teacher for all children. We’re building a real-time learning platform—one that combines language, speech, and memory to power personalized, interactive education for kids worldwide. We’re moving fast: we ship weekly, test directly with kids and families, and push the boundaries of what AI can do in education.
With the resources of the world's top investors and the heart of a public benefit corporation, we’re here to revolutionize how children learn globally. Featured on TIME’s Best Inventions and Fortune’s Change the World, Ello is a small, mission-driven team taking on one of the most important challenges of our time: to democratize education.
About the Role
This role will be our first dedicated support hire in Kenya, and will build the foundations that ensure every family’s experience reflects Ello’s mission to maximize each child’s potential. This role will start as a part-time contract at 20 hours per week, but we expect it to grow over time.
This is not a traditional customer service role. You won’t just respond to messages — you’ll help set up how support operates locally from the ground up.
You will:
Provide warm, high-quality support via WhatsApp and email
Surface product insights from real customer conversations
Build and document clear support workflows and templates
Use AI tools to improve speed, clarity, and consistency
Spot repetitive work and propose automation solutions
Continuously improve systems as support volume grows
We are looking for someone who genuinely cares about people and takes pride in clear, warm communication — and who also gets curious about how to make work smarter and more efficient.
This role is about building strong foundations for support in Nairobi while delivering excellent day-to-day service.
Required Qualifications
Strong written communication skills with a warm, professional tone
Demonstrated experience in customer support, community management, operations, or similar roles
Experience turning customer feedback into structured recommendations for product or operational improvement
Strong AI fluency and a demonstrated ability to apply AI tools to real operational workflows
Strong fluency with digital tools and ability to quickly learn new platforms
Experience handling ambiguity and helping define process where it doesn’t yet exist
Ability to stay calm and solution-oriented when customers are frustrated
High ownership and ability to work independently
Nice to Have
Experience supporting consumer technology products
Experience in edtech or working with families
Experience setting up or improving support workflows (e.g., tagging systems, macros, SOPs)
Experience suggesting or prototyping lightweight automations in support tools
Experience using Intercom
Startup experience
We look for candidates who
Genuinely enjoy helping people and solving problems
Communicate with warmth, empathy, clarity, and strong judgment
See support conversations as a source of product learning, not just problem resolution
Proactively use AI to reduce manual, repetitive work and improve speed, quality, and efficiency
Take initiative rather than waiting for detailed instructions
Are comfortable building structure where none exists yet
Care about quality and take pride in doing things well from the start
Reasons to join us
Dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of AI and interactive learning
Do meaningful work supporting child development
Be part of a fast-growing and tight-knit team
Help shape how customer support is built for a new product from the ground up
About Ello
Ello is a public benefit corporation on a mission to maximize the potential of all children. We’re currently around 50 people, headquartered in San Francisco with another office in Nairobi, Kenya.
Our team has deep expertise in artificial intelligence, K-12 education, and child development across institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley, Google, Apple, and more. We were part of Y Combinator’s W20 batch and are funded by world-class investors, including Goodwater Capital, Homebrew, Reed Hastings, Common Sense Growth, Ravensburger, Project A Ventures, Reach Capital, Khosla Ventures, WndrCo, Visible Ventures, and K9 Ventures.
We’re a small, collaborative team that takes each other’s voices seriously. Because our mission is to support all children, our team must be representative of the communities we work in; we place significant emphasis on ensuring diversity in our team and inclusion in our culture.
We feel enormously privileged to be one of the few companies with the opportunity to take a shot at truly revolutionizing education with AI at this inflection point in technology. We don’t take it for granted, so we work urgently to turn that vision into reality. We want to create an environment where we can all be our best selves, use our strengths to take Ello forward, and develop our skills. We want to have fun while working hard to do impactful things we’re proud of – and we believe it’s possible to do both.
At Ello, diversity is a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, skin color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to assess skills and experience directly. If you need accommodations throughout the interview process, please contact recruiting@ello.com.