Guide, Programs Team

Young Founders School; New York, Northern (NY, KY); Hybrid; USD 128,000 - 173,000; Full time

Job summary

Founders School is seeking a dedicated Programs Team Guide to coach ambitious teenagers across Founders Nights and Weekends. You will lead group coaching, 1:1 sessions, and workshops, helping students reach revenue milestones from first $100 to $100k while traveling to weekend events nationwide.

On-site in major US cities with regular weekend travel, you’ll model high standards, provide direct instruction, and build genuine relationships. AI-driven approaches are encouraged daily.

Qualifications

• Experience coaching, mentoring, or managing teenagers or young adults — required.
• Daily AI use across your work, with receipts.
• On-site in NYC, SF, Miami, Austin, or LA, with regular weekend travel; authorized to work in the US.

Responsibilities

• Coach a group of students in Founders Nights and Weekends Program in your city; build deep, specific coaching relationships.
• Run weekly 1:1s, set targets, provide direct instruction, and review real reps.
• Run workshops and office hours on selling, building in public, resilience, and financial thinking; involve mentors for specific support.
• Coach students through real firsts: first cold call, first rejection, first pivot; track progress against milestones.
• Travel with the Programs Team to run weekend events nationwide and help run Summer Programs.
• Build a founder culture in your city and model AI-native building for students.

Skills

Coaching teens

Exceptional people skills

Mentoring teens

Job description

Founders School is the high school where every student aims to build a million-dollar company before graduation. We pair Alpha's elite academics with real companies, world-class mentors, and a culture built for ambitious teenagers. Our north star is bigger than one campus: develop 1 million+ youth entrepreneurs across all Founders School initiatives.

Founders School has full campuses in NYC and Austin, and we're establishing our presence in San Francisco, Miami, and Los Angeles. The Programs Team leads that push across all five cities, and we're hiring a team of 1-2 per city, starting by January at the latest. You won't be running a school. You'll be part of the team running the Founders Nights and Weekends Program in your city, and traveling with the team to run our weekend events across the country.

Above all, you are a great business coach to teens who can make hard challenges a fun experience. You know when to coach to high standards, and you know how to build genuine connections and get our students hyped about entrepreneurship. Deep relationships, high standards, and high support go together, never one without the other. Exceptional people skills are a hard must: earn trust fast, give hard feedback that sticks, and hold the relationship through the messy middle.

You coach entrepreneurship the way an elite athletic coach develops athletes: direct instruction, deliberate practice, reps with real stakes, not inquiry-based exploration. If you've coached high performers or built something real and want to help grow Founders School, read on.

The Role

The job has two parts.

First, you run the Founders Nights and Weekends Program in your city. It launches in each city in January and continues at the start of each school year. Students are enrolled full-time at their own schools, so they come to us on nights and weekends to build real companies. We only work with ambitious, entrepreneurial students who want to be in the room. Your job is to challenge and support them, unlocking their full potential through entrepreneurship. You coach them through a set program: workshops, skills, and revenue milestones, from a founder's first $100 to $100k.

Second, you travel as part of the Programs Team running Founders School weekend events across the country, and you help run our Summer Programs. Every weekend is a chance to show a new city what ambitious teenagers can do, and you're part of the team that makes it world-class.

This is the Programs Team, not the full-time campus team. Campus Guides coach students across a full school day, every day, in one building. You coach part-time students on nights and weekends, in your city and on the road. In NYC and Austin, you run the program alongside our campus for students who aren't enrolled full-time.

As a Guide, your focus is your students. You report to Cameron Sorsby, Co-Head of Founders School.

What you will be doing

• Coaching a group of students in your city's Founders Nights and Weekends Program, with relationships deep enough that your coaching is specific, not generic

• Running weekly 1:1s where each student names a target, gets direct instruction on the skill they need, and reports back on real reps

• Running workshops and office hours on selling, building in public, resilience, and financial thinking, and pulling mentors in to provide specific support

• Coaching students through real firsts: first cold call, first rejection, first product nobody wants, first pivot

• Tracking every student's progress against the revenue milestones, with honest conversations about where they actually are

• Traveling with the Programs Team to run Founders School weekend events across the country, and helping run our Summer Programs

• Building a founder culture in your city where students push each other because you modeled it

• Using AI daily in your own work and modeling AI-native building for students

What you will NOT be doing

• Running the school. You're on the programs team, not the full-time campus team.

• Managing other Guides. This is a coaching seat.

• Inventing your own program. The program is set; your job is coaching and accountability inside it.

• Facilitating inquiry-based exploration instead of coaching entrepreneurship directly.

• Teaching academics. Students handle school elsewhere; you stay on the founder program.

• Handling event logistics, enrollment, or family scheduling. Operations owns that.

• Coaching remotely. You're on-site in your city and on the road with the team.

What this looks like in practice

The first cold call. A student has a product and a list of prospects, and hasn't dialed. You role-play the call with her in office hours. She makes three real calls before she leaves and reports back next session.

Holding the bar. A student who hit his first revenue milestone starts coasting on it. You name it directly, reset the next target with him, and stay on him until the number moves again.

On the road. You fly in for a Founders School weekend in another city, run a workshop for students meeting us for the first time, and come home sharper for your own students.

What success looks like

1. Students hitting milestones. Every student in your group has a real number going up — revenue, customers, or shipped work.

2. Students who get better and keep coming back. They leave sessions challenged and fired up, and they're visibly stronger on the skills they came in weakest on.

3. A city that believes. Your students are proof that Founders School works beyond our full-time campuses, and the weekends you help run make people want in.

Why this seat

You get in early on Founders School's expansion. You coach ambitious teenagers building real companies and help write the playbook every city program runs.

Compensation

$150,000 USD/year. Relocation support is available for non-local candidates in NYC, SF, Miami, Austin, or LA.

What this becomes

By the end of the first season: You know where every student in your group stands and what comes next. Students have real progress against the milestones, and you've helped run weekend events across the country.

At 12 months: You've run a full year of the program — spring season, Summer Programs, and the start of a new school year. Students in your city have real traction, and you've helped shape the playbook other Programs Team Guides run.

As Founders School opens campuses in more cities over the next year or two, the role grows with the program. The people who deliver earn more scope as we expand. None of it is handed out.

Who we're looking for

• A great business coach to teens. High bar with warmth and no condescension — able to push a teenager running real revenue and leave them sharper

• Exceptional people skills as a hard must: earn trust fast, deliver hard feedback that sticks, read the room, and hold the relationship when things get hard. Not a soft-skills nice-to-have

• You already coach the way we do: deep relationships, high standards with high support, and direct instruction over open-ended discovery

• Experience coaching, mentoring, or managing teenagers or young adults — required, not optional

• Real building experience: you've started a business, launched a product, or built something where the outcome depended on your execution

• Daily AI use across your work, with receipts

• Energized by nights, weekends, and travel, since that's when our students are out of school and building.

• On-site in NYC, SF, Miami, Austin, or LA, with regular weekend travel; authorized to work in the US. Relocation support available for non-local candidates

Nice to have

• Experience in accelerators, boot camps, or cohort-based programs

• Familiarity with high-intensity cohort models like YC, Buildspace, TKS, or the Thiel Fellowship

• Experience running after-school, weekend, summer, or event-based programs for teenagers

• A founder or operator network in your city

Do not apply if

• You want to facilitate discovery instead of coaching entrepreneurship directly

• You offer high standards without support, or warm support without a real bar

• Your people skills are average — this seat fails without exceptional interpersonal strength

• You coach adults well but freeze, soften, or talk down when the founder is a teenager

• You want a weekday, daytime schedule or a remote role

Come be a great business coach to the most ambitious teenagers in your city, and help grow Founders School in your city and beyond.