Chief Technology Officer

JOIN US

We are a new EdTech startup backed by the British Council and Blenheim Chalcot, the UK's leading digital venture builder. Our core offering is a mobile English test that helps millions of people to unlock the potential that the English language gives them. (Today 1 in 4 people around the world are using or learning English. That's nearly two billion people!)

We are a small and dynamic team excited to positively impact the lives of millions of people by making quality English language assessment available and affordable at scale. To date, over 5 million people have downloaded EnglishScore, and EnglishScore certificate holders reside in 150+ different countries.

Come join us on the journey!

ABOUT ENGLISHSCORE

EnglishScore tests are designed to provide certification of language proficiency for adult learners of English, with an emphasis on English for the workplace. They assess English language proficiency at A2 to C1 levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

There are three tests:

• Core Skills Test (Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading, and Listening)
• Speaking Test
• Writing Test

All tests are conducted on a mobile device, and take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Adaptivity is used to adjust question difficulty, and items are served at random to ensure users cannot anticipate questions. (Hence the importance of a robust item bank.)

Responsibilities

Over the past year, EnglishScore has grown considerably. We've expanded our product offering, have new products in the pipeline, and significantly grown our commercial teams. You'll be joining the senior leadership team, who are smart, digitally literate, and driving the business forward. You'll be a key thought partner to them, helping them understand how tech can help their respective teams, and then ensuring your team delivers that effectively and sustainably. In the simplest way, you'll be responsible for everything that handles data, or uses electricity. There are good staff and suppliers already in place, but there's always room for improvement. We're looking to you to help us on the next chapter of the journey, and help grow awareness of our technical prowess.

ABOUT YOU:

• Strong track record delivering as a CTO or in a similar role
• Experience balancing short term customer needs with long term tech strategy, ideally across mobile and backend, B2B and B2C.
• Ability to choose wisely between buy and build, and how to balance "using amazing tech" with "using simple tech to achieve amazing things".
• A track record of leading high performing global teams
• Effective communicator to a range of investors, senior leadership and team members with varied levels of technical knowledge
• Experience working within high growth start-ups or fast paced environments
• And ideally, some experience working within highly regulated industries such as Edtech or Fintech

Expectations:

Team

• Ensuring our team flourish, be that through mentoring, progression, training, or opportunities.
• Responsibly recruiting and growing the team, using diversity to particularly help build empathy with our global user base.
• Driving ownership, autonomy and agency to all team members
• Helping the community learn about why we're a great place to work.

Platform

• Leading our long term tech strategy, by continually ensuring it's appropriate, and that we're implementing at the most appropriate pace.
• Learning from our experience, and those of others, to keep improving on a day to day basis.
• Being mindful of global differences in regulation, infrastructure, connectivity, and how to plan for those.
• Positioning our technology so that it can be embedded within a wider commercial ecosystem.

Deliverables

• Have accountability our technical delivery, availability and performance.
• Working with our Chief Product Officer to ensure an ambitious, achievable, balanced roadmap is in place and delivered against.

Business IT

• Overall responsibility for our business IT provision (eg laptops, GSuite, Hubspot, BI tooling) etc.
• Ensuring appropriate risk management measures are in place, such as our approach to cyber security, GDPR governance, vendor management, penetration testing etc.

DIVERSITY

We will be delighted if we can continue to build a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills. This benefits us, our employees, our partners and our customers. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we subscribe to British Council's Equality global policy statement.