Youth Development Specialist, Alpha - $100,000/year USD

Crossover; McKinney (TX); On-site; USD 78,000 - 97,000; Full time

Job summary

Alpha in McKinney, TX seeks a Youth Development Specialist to run life-skills workshops for K-8, inspire students to reach weekly app goals, and analyze Coachbot analytics to tailor coaching. This on-site, full-time role is part of Alpha's campus network and requires in-person presence.

You will coach with energy, adapt sessions to different ages, and maintain high standards while supporting students' growth.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in any subject
• At least 3 years working directly with K-8 students in teaching, tutoring, coaching, camp leadership, or youth programs
• Comfortable letting adaptive learning software deliver academic instruction while you coach motivation and life-skills
• Proven high achievement in academics, athletics, or work, showing habit of meeting hard standards
• Strong stage presence to engage 12-year-olds for an hour without raised voice
• US work authorization without visa sponsorship

Responsibilities

• Leading one-hour life-skills workshops for K-8 cohorts on public speaking, focus, and giving and receiving feedback
• Running daily 1:1 and small-group motivation sessions to hit weekly app goals using Coachbot analytics and incentives
• Administering Test2Pass mastery assessments and re-coaching until mastery is achieved
• Adapting workshop playbooks and creating sessions for different ages, from kindergartener to 8th grade
• Being the trusted adult who upholds standards and supports student growth

Job description

\"We are never going to lower the standard for any kid — instead we're going to raise the support to help them get there.\"

— Braden, Head Guide, Alpha Austin

Alpha is hiring.

The most supportive thing you can do for a student who hits 99% of their weekly goal is refuse to call it done. Not because you are indifferent, but because you believe they can clear the bar, and lowering it is the real failure.

This is not a classroom teaching role. At Alpha, students learn academics through AI-powered adaptive learning apps. No lectures. No textbooks. No whiteboard. Motivation and life skills, the part of youth development work that's hardest to measure and easiest to shortchange, are the whole job here.

Picture a Tuesday. Half your day you run one-hour workshops for a K-8 cohort on public speaking, focus, and how to give and receive real feedback. The other half you sit with those same students one-on-one or in small groups, read their Coachbot analytics, and push each of them to 100% of their weekly app goals, using school currency, leaderboards, and the relationship you have built with them to break through resistance.

Your quarter comes down to three numbers: every student in your cohort hits their weekly app goals, every student passes the Test2Pass mastery check for each workshop, and 90% or more say they love you. Missing one of the three is missing the job.

The payoff is the day a student who spent September insisting they were bad at math asks you to raise their goal.

This is a full-time, on-site role at one of Alpha's campuses. We recruit nationally, so job boards may display this opportunity in nearby cities that do not have a campus yet.

Current openings for this salary tier are available in Scottsdale, AZ; Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; and Austin, Dallas, and Plano, TX.

If you have coached youth sports, run a cabin at camp, or tutored a kid who wanted to quit, the last step before an offer is a full day on campus coaching real Alpha students.

What You Will Be Doing

• Leading one-hour life-skills workshops for K-8 cohorts on public speaking, focus, and giving and receiving feedback


• Running daily 1:1 and small-group motivation sessions that push every student to 100% of their weekly app goals, using Coachbot analytics and Alpha's incentive systems (school currency, leaderboards)


• Administering the Test2Pass mastery assessment for each life skill, then re-coaching any student who does not pass until they do


• Adapting the workshop playbook, and building new sessions when you find a gap, so the same material lands with a kindergartener and with an 8th grader


• Being both the adult who holds the standard and the adult your students choose to talk to

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Lecturing at a whiteboard, writing math and reading lesson plans, or grading homework; academic instruction lives in the apps


• Running standardized test prep or answering for a class-wide test score


• Handling parent conferences, emails, and complaints; campus leadership owns all parent-facing work


• Crowd-controlling 30 students at once; cohorts are small and behavior work here is 1:1 coaching


• Supervising kids at computers; motivation here is active and personal

Youth Development Specialist Key Responsibilities

Ensure every student in your K-8 cohort hits their weekly learning goals, masters each life skill, and leaves the year saying they loved school.

Basic Requirements

• Willing to work in person at an Alpha campus in Scottsdale, AZ; Oklahoma City or Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; or Austin, Dallas, or Plano, TX - relocation support provided


• Bachelor's degree in any subject


• At least 3 years working directly with K-8 (elementary and middle school) students: classroom teaching, tutoring, athletic coaching, camp leadership, or youth program work


• Comfortable letting adaptive learning software deliver the academic instruction while you own motivation and life-skills coaching
  
• A personal record of high achievement, academic, athletic, or professional, that made holding a hard standard a habit rather than a posture


• Stage presence strong enough to hold a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without raising your voice


• Legal right to work in the United States without visa sponsorship

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Youth athletics coaching, debate, drama, camp leadership, or after-school program work where you were personally accountable for kids hitting a specific goal


• Experience teaching social-emotional learning (SEL) or durable-skills curricula


• A student you can name who went from resistant or checked out to fully engaged, and the specific thing you did


• Daily use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini

About Alpha

Join the team building school around student growth

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

Roles with real student impact:

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

Education work that pays like it matters:

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

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.

There is so much to cover for this exciting role, and space here is limited.

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 $100,000 USD/year. The payment period is weekly. Consult www.crossover.com/help-and-faqs for more details on this topic.

Crossover Job Code: LJ-4415-US-McKinney-YouthDevelopme.003