Student Excellence Coach, Alpha - $150,000/year USD

Crossover; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 135,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Benefits (W2)

Year-long role

Job summary

Alpha School Alpha in California seeks a Student Excellence Coach to motivate, coach, and hold students to the highest standards. You’ll combine direct 1-on-1 coaching, structured life-skills workshops, and morning kickoff routines to set a culture where excellence is the norm.

With elite personal achievements as the backdrop, you’ll help students reach levels they didn’t know possible, building trust with families and guiding long-term growth on campus.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• At least 3 years of experience coaching or mentoring youth.
• Proven track record of high achievement in elite domains is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Run 1-on-1 and small-group coaching sessions using analytics to diagnose blockers and set ambitious goals.
• Lead structured life-skills workshops built for mastery and assess outcomes.
• Set daily cultural tone with focused morning kickoffs to reinforce high-performance expectations.
• Track student progress in real time and adjust coaching strategies based on data.
• Build trusted mentor relationships with students and families through high standards and motivation plans.

Skills

Elite achievement

Coaching experience

Campus in-person work

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

"the Great Educational Equalizer" — Philosopher Johnathan Bi, on Alpha School Alpha is hiring. You believe the kindest thing you can do for a student is refuse to lower the bar. You've competed, built, or achieved at a level most people only read about: elite athletics, a top-tier university with distinction, a highly selective firm, or a venture you built from nothing. Now picture putting that intensity to work in a room full of K-12 students who have never had someone with your background in their corner, pushing them to standards they didn't know they could reach. If holding students to elite standards sounds harsh to you, stop reading.

Alpha uses AI-powered 1-on-1 learning so students can master core academics in about two hours a day. That frees the rest of the day for life skills, passion-driven work, and real growth. At Alpha's highest-expectation campuses, students need more than supervision. They need a trusted mentor whose own achievements set the standard: someone who can read the room, set the tone, and coach them through resistance, distraction, and self-doubt.

Your job isn't to teach. AI handles the instructional content. Your job is to motivate, coach, and hold students to the same uncompromising bar you've held yourself to. Forty percent of your week is direct 1-on-1 and small-group coaching that diagnoses blockers and sets ambitious goals. Another forty percent is leading structured life-skills workshops built for mastery, not entertainment. The remaining twenty percent is setting the tone each morning through focused kickoffs that establish a culture where mediocrity isn't an option.

The arc here is depth, not management. You start by learning Alpha's playbook and building credibility with students. Within months, you're the person they trust enough to let push them past what they thought was possible. The reward isn't a promotion. It's the same students, year after year, growing up with you in their corner. It's watching a student who couldn't make eye contact in September present confidently to a room full of adults in May.

This role stays student-facing. Students are the point, not a stepping stone to something else. If your reason to leave your current job is the mission, not the line on your resume, apply now.

What You Will Be Doing

• Running 1-on-1 and small-group coaching sessions using Coachbot analytics and student progress data to diagnose blockers, set ambitious goals, and hold students accountable for follow-through
• Delivering structured life-skills workshops built for mastery using credible storytelling from your own elite experience, then assessing mastery through Alpha's Test2Pass system
• Setting the cultural tone each morning through focused kickoffs that reinforce high-performance expectations across the campus
• Tracking student progress in real time and adjusting coaching strategies based on data, not instinct
• Building trusted mentor relationships with students and families through high standards, consistency, and documented motivation plans

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Designing curriculum, teaching lessons, or grading assignments — Alpha's AI-powered academic model handles instruction; you handle motivation
• Lecturing to a classroom of 30 students (your work is high-touch coaching in small groups, not broadcast teaching)
• Managing other staff or climbing an administrative ladder (this role is about direct student impact, not organizational hierarchy)
• Sitting through faculty meetings or navigating school bureaucracy (your time stays focused on students)
• Lowering the bar to hit metrics (if a student scored 99%, your job is to figure out what kept them from 100%)

Student Excellence Coach Key Responsibilities

Drive exceptional student motivation, growth, and life-skill mastery at Alpha's highest-expectation campuses.

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• At least one instance of exceptional achievement in a highly selective, globally recognized domain (examples: national or international competition medals, top-tier university with distinction, highly selective firm or fellowship, elite performing arts institution, or founding and scaling a successful venture)
• At least 3 years of experience in student coaching, youth mentoring, athletic coaching, or leadership roles where you measurably raised others' performance
• Willing to work in-person at an Alpha campus in Orange County, CA; Palo Alto, CA; San Francisco, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; South Bay, CA; Greenwich, CT; Boca Raton, FL; Boston, MA; New York City, NY; Park City, UT; or Kirkland (Seattle), WA (relocation support provided)
• Legal right to work in the United States

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Background in elite competitive athletics (varsity D1, national team, or professional level) with experience coaching or mentoring younger athletes
• Experience in high-accountability environments like management consulting, investment banking, or military leadership
• Track record of youth development through mentoring in non-academic settings (community organizations, after-school programs, sports camps)
• Comfort presenting to and building trust with high-expectation families paying premium private school tuition

About Alpha

Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills.

Join the team building school around student growth

Alpha hires teachers (guides), operators, admissions experts, school & curriculum leaders, and remote team members.

Roles with real student impact

Alpha offers six-figure roles for people ready to help build a radically better school experience.

Education work that pays like it matters

A culture built for builders: Alpha is fast-moving, ambitious, and student focused. It’s for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it.

Alpha is where you can do the most meaningful work of your career

Working with us

This is a full-time, W2 employee position with immediate access to benefits (https://support.crossover.com/article/7581-w2-benefits-u-s-paychex-paid-only). All roles are year-long positions. The compensation level for this role is $150,000 USD/year. The payment period is weekly. Consult www.crossover.com/help-and-faqs for more details on this topic.