Support Escalations Specialist (6-Month Contract)

About Outschool

Outschool’s mission is to inspire kids to love learning. In our fast-changing world, the traditional educational system struggles to meet the diverse and evolving needs of young learners. Outschool reimagines this system, offering flexible and engaging learning experiences as a supplement and alternative to traditional education. By connecting learners with a global community of teachers and peers through our online platform, we make learning personal, dynamic, and deeply human.

We've made significant strides since launching our marketplace of live online classes in 2017. Finding initial success with secular homeschoolers, we then expanded to enrichment learning to meet the needs of a wider audience, growing our business 16x since 2019. Post-pandemic, we have evolved our platform to power academic learning, incorporated AI, and have begun to grow our international community. We're proud to have served over 1M passionate learners with more than $100M in annual bookings.

Driving disruptive, positive change in education is rewarding and hard. Outschool team members are encouraged to challenge themselves, take risks, and grow in their careers. We look for talented people whose sense of urgency, innate curiosity, and determination to drive impact will help Outschool achieve outsized results in pursuit of our mission. We invite you to be part of an ambitious team dedicated to ensuring every learner can navigate the future with curiosity, resilience, and a love of learning.

About The Role

As part of the CX team, you'll handle escalated tickets from parents and teachers - the ones without an obvious answer, where you'll be making independent judgment calls without a playbook for every situation. You'll also occasionally handle Trust & Safety escalations, which can include sensitive content. We're looking for someone with strong investigative, decision-making, and writing skills who thrives on resolving complex, ambiguous issues in a fast-paced environment.

Core Responsibilities

• Resolve escalated customer support tickets from parents and teachers, primarily via email
• Investigate ambiguous situations and make sound decisions under time pressure
• Handle occasional Trust & Safety escalations, which may involve sensitive content including reports related to minors, self-harm, or abuse
• Communicate outcomes clearly and with care, including when the answer isn't what the customer hoped for
• Share useful context and feedback from your ticket work with the broader CX team

Desired Experience & Skills

• Strong written communication, especially for difficult or sensitive conversations
• Judgment under ambiguity: you can make a decision, explain your reasoning, and keep moving
• Able to engage with occasional heavy content without it derailing your work
• Comfortable working independently in a remote, fast-paced environment

Nice To Haves

• Experience in K–12 education
• Startup experience
• Prior experience with escalated support tickets
• Prior exposure to Trust & Safety, content moderation, or other judgment-heavy work

Hours And Compensation

Outschool recruits across the U.S. and Canada. This role is anticipated to work 35-40 hours per week, with an anticipated hourly rate of $25.00.

Benefits

This is a contract role. As a contractor, benefits are not included; however, a full benefits package would be available if converted to a full-time employee.

Benefits & Culture

• Shared Financial Success: Competitive salaries, stock options, retirement plans.
• Health & Wellness: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance — plus fertility/family planning coverage and access to ModernHealth coaching & therapy.
• PTO & Family Benefits: Generous PTO and family leave policies.
• Hybrid & Remote-Friendly: Outschool has a distributed team across the U.S. and Canada and a new office in San Francisco. Bay Area–based employees work in the office part of the week and receive commute-related benefits. Team members outside the Bay Area remain fully remote, with support for expensable home office setup, internet, and weekly meals to stay connected no matter where you are.
• Lifelong Learners: Annual budgets for professional development and DEI learning; budgets for children to take Outschool classes.
• Community Impact: Outschool matches employee donations to eligible charities and supports Outschool.org’s nonprofit programs.

Outschool is an equal opportunity employer. We view diversity as a moral imperative and competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to directly assess skills and experience.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact recruiting@outschool.com.

Benefits packages are included for full-time employees only. Please note benefits and perks may vary for employees based outside of the US and Canada.

Full-time employees must be a citizen or legal residents of the U.S. or Canada and reside in U.S. or Canada, unless specifically indicated otherwise.

Once you submit your application, Outschool will process your personal data to evaluate your candidacy for employment. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, we hire employees only in the U.S. and Canada. Applicants else where should be aware that we may discard your application upon submission or we may ask if you would like us to retain it later should there be consideration (this is not typical at all). If you are selected for interviewing, your data will be shared with interviewers and personnel involved in that process. If not hired, your application will be retained for one year in case there is another suitable role. You may opt out of this at any time. Please see our Employee/Applicant Privacy Notice for more detailed information. If applicable, as you progress through the process, we will be clear about what information is being asked for and what happens with that information.

Key skills/competency

• Customer Support
• Escalation Management
• Problem-Solving
• Decision Making
• Written Communication
• Trust & Safety
• Content Moderation
• Investigative Skills
• Ambiguity Tolerance
• Fast-Paced Environment