Empower the Future of Education with Scalable, Impactful Technology
At Proximity Learning, we’re transforming K-12 education by delivering live, certified teachers directly into classrooms across the country—virtually. As a leader in virtual instruction, we are scaling our technology to better serve students and teachers in under-resourced communities. We’re looking for a Lead Ruby on Rails Developer to drive the evolution of our platform and shape the future of educational equity.
🔧 About the Role
As our Lead Developer, you’ll be the technical anchor of our product engineering team—owning architecture decisions, mentoring engineers, and driving execution of platform features that directly impact teachers, students, and district partners.
You will:
- Lead design, development, and deployment of scalable applications using Ruby on Rails
- Architect backend systems and integrate with frontend components and third-party tools
- Collaborate with product and design teams to translate educational needs into technical solutions
- Review code, set technical standards, and mentor junior and mid-level developers
- Ensure system reliability, performance, and security across a growing ecosystem
✅ What We’re Looking For
- 6+ years of experience building and maintaining complex web applications
- Deep expertise with Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Redis, and RESTful APIs
- Experience leading a team or mentoring other developers in a fast-paced environment
- Familiarity with frontend frameworks (React or similar) is a plus
- Strong sense of ownership, curiosity, and a mission-driven mindset
- Experience working in an EdTech, SaaS, or remote-first company is a bonus
🌍 Why Proximity Learning?
- Mission-driven: Help solve the teacher shortage and advance educational equity
- Collaborative culture: Work with passionate educators, technologists, and innovators
- Competitive salary + benefits: Including health insurance, 401(k), and generous PTO
- Fun office environment with lunch, snacks, monthly fun team events, nitro coffee on tap, bar accessible after hours, etc.
Top Skills
What We Do
Proximity Learning partners with districts to solve teacher vacancies by livestreaming certified teachers, from all over the country, into physical classrooms for all subjects. Having already served over 150 districts and 45,000 students, Proximity Learning is committed to connecting all learners with the expert teachers they deserve.
Proximity Learning facilitates district course subject needs by providing live, real-time, teacher-led instruction through video conferencing software, ensuring students do not miss out on valuable math, world language, SPED, science, or elective subjects. Each student is given access to instruction through a laptop where they can view and interact with their teacher; students and instructors communicate with each other in real-time via webcam and via text-chat.
Proximity Learning teachers are the most important part of closely approximating the experience of a traditional brick and mortar classroom setting - we value those with a passion for teaching, the ability to be autonomous, and a strong drive to connect a diverse group of students across the United States with the quality teachers they deserve. Our teachers work from home and get paid a competitive salary based on experience. Additionally, we offer growth opportunities and bonuses based on student success.
If that sounds like something you’d like to be part of, we’d love to hear from you about our current open positions.
Avoid scams! If you're interested in joining PLI, we will always ask you to apply through our applicant dashboard in PLI Connect! All candidates can apply through our applicant dashboard at https://proxlearn.pliconnect.com/. Rest assured, we'll only consider candidates who have completed an application through this website, and have undergone a virtual face to face interview. Any communication regarding your application will come from an email address ending in @proxlearn.com. Our IT team works extremely hard to make sure everyone's data is secure.