Software Engineering Coach: Flexible (PostgreSQL, React Native + More) in Newcastle upon Tyne

Important Note: Right now we’re prioritising coaches who are expert in PostgreSQL, React Native, or Leadership, Communication and Management (in the context of software teams). If you have expertise in other technologies, then please do still apply. In this case, we may ask to keep your details and reach out when we are more confident of demand in those areas.

Role Summary: We’re looking for experienced lead engineers or equivalent to lead targeted micro-workshops for small groups of software engineers. The sessions last up to 90 minutes, take place remotely via our app, and are based around high quality teaching material that we produce. Your job is to bring expertise and enthusiasm for software engineering and ensure our learners leave with a deep understanding of the topic (understanding why, not just knowing what or how), and the ability to apply new skills. You can expect to be teaching senior as well as junior engineers, answering interesting questions tangential to our material, and live-debugging their code. For this reason, we’ve found that the skill profile required is more similar to pairing or technical mentoring than it is to typical classroom teaching.

About Skiller Whale: Skiller Whale changes what tech teams are capable of through live sessions led by subject-matter experts. Developers attend a 60-90 minute session every week or two, learning something new through challenging exercises with an expert leading the session to explain the topic and answer difficult questions. Learners love us (they give us an average rating of 4.8 / 5) and we have a measurable impact on the teams we work with.

What We’re Looking For: We’d love for you to apply if you enjoy building the skills and understanding of others, and you have expertise in the curriculum we provide. The technologies/topics that we need coaches for soon are:

• Advanced PostgreSQL
• React Native
• Leadership, Communication and Management (in the context of software teams)

If you are an expert in two or more of the following areas, we’ll still consider you as a coach, although it may be longer before you are allocated a group:

• Common languages/frameworks (e.g. Go, React, Kotlin, Java etc)
• Platforms, Tools and/or Databases (e.g. AWS, Docker, PostgreSQL)
• Test-Driven Development
• REST API Design
• Leadership, Communication and Management (in the context of software teams)

You’ll need to be able to give nuanced answers to difficult questions, give relevant examples from your experience with a topic, and explain advanced concepts clearly and succinctly.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your expertise is in the lower priority technologies, but your application is strong, we may put your application on hold (we’ll let you know if this happens) and then reach out again when we are more likely to have a group to offer you.

More Details:

Working Hours: Most of our coaches lead between 1 and 4 sessions per week (1.5 - 6 hours), with Skiller Whale making up part of a portfolio career, or adding variety to their main employment, consulting or fractional roles. We typically book regular weekly 90 minute time-slots for these sessions, based around your availability.

The Platform: All our teaching is done through the Skiller Whale platform, which includes video conferencing and other tooling designed to make teaching as slick as possible. High quality written content and exercises are provided by Skiller Whale, so you shouldn’t need to do significant preparation before a session (we assume ½ - 1 hour to get familiar with the material, and we pay for preparation the first time a module is taught).

Accommodations: Should you require any accommodations during the interview process, please reach out to Dave Millican to let him know. We’re always happy to help and will do everything we can to accommodate you.

Please Note: This is a rolling opportunity. Because we always have people going through our process, and only limited time to process them, our response times to initial applications may be slow (up to 4 weeks), in order to prioritise applicants already in the pipeline.

Requirements: We want to be seen as intelligent, playful learners. Our customers need to trust us to teach their engineers how they should be building software and working effectively in the real world. For our coaches, that means you need to demonstrate:

• Knowledge & Understanding: You should come across (legitimately) as an expert, able to expand beyond the provided material when appropriate. E.g: examples from your experience in different settings; what you’ve found works well, and what doesn’t.
• Careful Listening and Clear Explanations: You must be able to deliver clear and concise explanations in spoken English and be able to adapt your explanation style to match the level of your audience.
• Expert Spoken and Written English: You should be expert and eloquent in spoken English, with an accent that will be clear to non-native (but fluent) speakers from various backgrounds. You should be able to quickly understand questions with complex phrasing or grammar and know when you need to clarify.
• A Personable, Passionate and Professional Demeanour: You should be able to easily build rapport with new groups of people, and create a safe space for learners to ask questions. You should come across as friendly and demonstrate enthusiasm for the topics you teach, whilst maintaining professionalism.
• Live Debugging: You should be comfortable looking at code, quickly understanding how it works (or why it doesn’t), and identifying bugs or potential improvements under time pressure (e.g. live in a session).
• Industry Experience: In order to teach senior engineers with confidence, it’s important that you have extensive real-world experience! Learners may well ask about how things are really done in practice and being able to give examples and anecdotes is important.
• Teaching or Mentoring Experience (formal or informal): Experience teaching groups of software engineers, or mentoring other developers (even in an unofficial capacity) is a bonus, particularly if those people were relatively senior. Since this is an essential part of most senior, lead and engineering management roles we would expect most suitable candidates to have some experience here.

Bonus Points For:

• Experience with Multiple Languages / Frameworks / Tools etc. All the people we teach are already software developers, but will come from various backgrounds / have experience with different programming languages. Having context from those is sometimes useful to help learners’ understanding.

Benefits:

• Rate: £100 per hour (+ paid £50 for preparation for each new module taught)
• Very flexible work - we will aim to schedule sessions that fit your availability, and you have no ongoing commitment.
• Fully remote, forever.
• Have a real impact on learners. Our sessions actually make people better at their jobs.
• Teaching is fun!