Manager, Usable Knowledge

Start Date: Immediate
Role Type: Full-time
Title: Manager, Usable Knowledge 
Reports to: Cynthia Leck 

Location/Travel: Flexible; willingness to travel approximately once a month for 1-2 days, ~10% travel 

Who We Are:

Transcend is a national nonprofit that helps communities reimagine and redesign schools so every young person can thrive in a rapidly changing world. Across the country, communities are recognizing that classrooms built for the industrial age aren’t preparing learners for what’s next. Instead, schools must be designed for continuous evolution: relevant, resilient, and ready for the future. For more than a decade, Transcend has partnered with school and system leaders to build the capacity for bold, lasting change—change led by the people who live it every day. We’ve worked with nearly 500 schools and 200 districts serving over 225,000 students in 35 states. Together, we’ve seen what’s possible when communities lead redesign with proven methods, insight, and support. From that work, we develop and share tools, research, and models that help schools everywhere make the leap to extraordinary learning—for every child, in every community.

For more information, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn.

The Opportunity 

As a Usable Knowledge Manager, you will help us answer some of education’s most complex and pressing questions around topics that are both nascent, like Computer Science and AI, or long-standing, like math and literacy: How can schools help students develop the knowledge, skills, and mindsets they need to thrive? How can that knowledge be translated into meaningful, engaging learning experience? How can schools and systems be designed to deliver them consistently for every learner?

You will synthesize knowledge from research, field experts, and real-world practice into actionable resources—supporting schools to create learning where every child's outcomes aren't predicted by their zip code or circumstances. The result of your work will support schools and systems to advance towards more extraordinary for all students. 

Examples of what this role would create and collaborate on include the Designing for Learning Primer, Current Trend Cards, Blended Learning Primer, and Innovative Models Exchange Entries. 

In this role, you will develop deep knowledge across the most critical topics shaping the transformation of schools and education systems. You will critically assess the knowledge you surface and work closely with others to determine how to best translate it into resources that are accessible and actionable for school communities. You will actively develop content through writing, visualization, and formatting, working with others for feedback and relying on specialized support (e.g., graphic design, videography) as needed. The work will be deeply collaborative, connecting you with teammates across Transcend—including those supporting our efforts to build capacity and engage in systematic change across the larger education field and those working directly with schools and school systems. 

In This Role, You Will Get To

• Research and develop highly informative resources for a variety of projects and purposes. In partnership with your manager and other teammates, you will shape the core questions that each resource is designed to answer and surface diverse forms of knowledge to respond to those questions. You will synthesize this knowledge into clear, concise written resources for school or school system audiences, working with others to organize, format, and visualize the content so it is useful and cohesively aligned with our broader set of resources. You will also take lessons from how existing resources are utilized and use that learning to improve existing supports and prioritize new ones.
• You'll operate with strong project management as you drive highly collaborative projects forward. You will develop project and personal learning plans with input from your supervisor and other team members, then manage your work toward those plans, and collaborate effectively to complete both independent and shared responsibilities. Along the way, you’ll receive and act on feedback from your manager and teammates along the way, and work to build and sustain a constructive team culture and effective team operations through shared systems, routines, and norms. 
• Collaborate with many teammates to support resource creation, access, and use. Working with your manager, you will establish scopes of work to ensure deliverables, timelines, and ways of communication and collaborating align with the needs and vision of projects and resource users. You’ll operationalize those scopes of work, bringing insight and questions to your manager and team members for discussion while also keeping projects and other users of resources updated on your progress. You’ll also support other Transcend teams and team members in accessing, understanding, and applying UK resources in their work through structured and ad-hoc guidance and capacity building. 
• Participate in external engagements and relationship building. You’ll build relationships with external experts and peer organizations and help plan and facilitate sessions that advance learning with partner communities at both local and national events.

To see this role in action, check out a few sample projectshere, and to hear more from a current teammate about the work and team, click here. 

Who You Are

You are deeply curious. As you go about your day, you see a million questions just begging to be answered, and when something grabs your interest, there’s no stopping you! You have a black belt in Advanced Internet Super Sleuthing; in fact, when others see a “dead end,” you see an opportunity to get creative. For you, the thrill is in the search. You don’t just find answers, you pressure test them to your rigorous standards. You also realize that finding your answer is only the beginning. You also have to share it in ways that make sense to other people. To do this, precise and thoughtful language, compelling visuals, and powerful organizing frameworks are your tools of choice—with them, you can disentangle “wicked problems,” connect a dozen dots, and make opaque ideas crystal clear. By the time you’re satisfied, a Supreme Court justice would be proud to argue your case in court: it’s got ironclad evidence, complex ideas made simple, and it's wrapped in a narrative that would compel even the biggest skeptic. The questions you help answer have the potential to be your legacy—they will transform education as we know it.

To all of this, you bring the following skills, experiences, and orientations:

• A deep commitment to Transcend’s mission of transforming education, and an eagerness to actively contribute to Transcend’s culture and live into our core values 
• Meaningful experience working in, or alongside, PK–12 education organizations (e.g., as a teacher, school leader, researcher, or member of a school support organization), grounding your work in the realities of schools and systems.
• Demonstrated experience in developing rigorous research questions and synthesizing complex academic and practitioner research bycritically analyzing disparate information, drawing meaningful conclusions, and constructing cohesive conceptual frameworks to communicate findings to diverse stakeholders.
• A talent for translating complex information and ideas (like complex frameworks, academic research, white papers, etc) into clear strategic insights and actionable recommendations, and the ability to communicate them with clarity, simplicity, and strong writing for diverse school and system audiences.
• Strong communication skills—written and verbal—applied in human-centered ways that build understanding, trust, and momentum.
• Strong project planning and time-management skills that enable you to work independently and effectively in a remote environment.
• A commitment to a future where a child’s outcomes aren’t predicted by their zip code or family circumstances, with experience connecting research findings to the systems and conditions that shape opportunity.
• A strong sense of curiosity grounded in active listening, empathy, and thoughtful questioning, enabling effective partnership to surface the goals of a client or project.
• A nimble orientation and comfort navigating ambiguity, with experience advancing work even when problems, pathways, or outcomes are still taking shape.
• A willingness (and enjoyment) in working iteratively, testing ideas, and refining deliverables until goals are met or exceeded.
• A collaborative, solutions-oriented mindset and approach, with the ability to partner across roles and projects, contributing positively to shared goals and leading with initiative by bringing forward thoughtful ideas and improvements.

Application & Hiring ProcessWe review applications on a rolling basis and are committed to a thoughtful and people-centered hiring experience that helps candidates feel what it’s like to work at Transcend. Here’s what you can expect if you are selected to move forward:

• Initial interview with the team via Zoom to learn more about your interest and experiences. A note on compensation: during your initial interview with the team, we will confirm your location and accompanying salary range. *More on how we determine this is below. 
• Try-on activity to engage in a role-aligned exercise. This helps us get a sense of how you approach the work and gives you a feel for what the role might be like. 
• Interview with the hiring manager, where we’d debrief the try-on task and engage in some scenarios you are likely to encounter in the role.
• Compensation & benefits convo where we’ll share information around where we anticipate you’ll fall within the range, share more about our employment policies and benefits, and answer any questions you may have. 
• Interview with the team, where you will meet with a small group of Transcend teammates with whom you would most likely collaborate in the role.
• Final interview with our Chief Products Officer. 
• Reference checks to learn more about your superpowers and working style. 

A Few Nuts & BoltsWe are an experienced team focused on extraordinary learning for all. We welcome candidates who are passionate about ensuring that all students thrive. We are also committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package and offer medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We take pride in our collaborative environment, exceptional team, and shared commitment to principled, impactful work.

*As a national team, we apply a cost-of-labor adjustment by adjusting salaries into 3 geographical bands (geo-band) in order to offer competitive compensation for all employees across the US. These geo-bands help us tailor compensation appropriately based on the specific location of each teammate.

We look forward to learning more about you!