Lesson Writer/Designer for a Language Learning App

Background/Job Description:
You will be working for a media/technology startup company that is making a language learning app (compare to duolingo). This is a long-term opportunity (expect to work here for more than a few months). Most technology infrastructure is viable at this point in time, and you will be making lessons on top of the custom in-house infrastructure (training provided). You will have the freedom to work whichever hours you like under the expectation that you complete assignments on time. In other words, you will be a contract writer/designer. You will also be able to read on the job to improve your professional skills and work on side-projects. The things that will differentiate our product from competition will be small, incremental improvements and an immersion-first teaching method (more details available upon request). The language pair that you will be responsible for (at least at first) is Japanese for English speakers. I do not believe in time tracking software since I think it is a violation of privacy. Instead, you will send daily update emails that say what you have done that day.

Benefits/Perks:
-pick your own hours
-few meetings
-open-ended creative work with a high degree of freedom
-ability to improve professional skills and advance in career
-other benefits/perks not listed

Soft Skills/Ideal Candidate:
The sort of person I am looking for is an avid learner/reader that wants that wants to help others like them progress. You should be a naturally creative person that deeply understands people and how they learn and live. You have to be at least a little brave and somewhat open-minded with this sort of thing as well, since it is a tech startup.

Basic Skills:
You need to be computer literate for this role. You will be following complicated instructions at times. You must speak at least English and Japanese, but more languages is better. A high degree of proficiency in a couple languages is more valuable than poor ability in many languages.

Technical Skills and Experience:
-Writing (portfolio required)
-Teaching (job experience preferred; some form of knowledge required)
-Other Creative Skills (preferred) (if you have an art portfolio or something, send it over as well)

Detailed Responsibilities:
Onboarding will consist of me walking you through internal tooling and procedures, which we will write documentation for as you learn. I will also be explaining expectations and context. I expect this to take around 2-3 weeks. You will be paid for this period.
A typical week will consist of an all-hands meeting (specific time and day), research/planning, a quota of lessons to create and optional 20% side-project time (which I expect to be mostly blogpost articles about the Japanese language or language learning in general, promotional video ideas, competitions for our customers, etc).
Unfortunately, due to the nature of the work, some things will need to be revised or completely replaced. Do not get discouraged if something you spent hours on needs to be redone or scrapped due to reasons of quality or customer disinterest. Be brave.

Samples of the work I expect:
The prototype app is currently live on Click to view/
Feel free to look at the lessons that I have already made to familiarize yourself with what I expect. I expect similar or higher quality lessons. Let me know if you have technical difficulties accessing it. You can skip the surveys at the beginning by pressing “Next” without selecting anything.
The lessons are written in JSON format, and there is a custom in-house editor to make them initially, then they are edited by hand if needed. I will train you on how to do it.

Other Expectations:
-You will send a daily email at the end of work each day detailing your progress on work.
-I would like it if you let me know if there is some kind of problem or inconvenience so that I can help (sooner is better — e.g. if you have a family emergency, I will understand and push back your quota so you can be free for a few days. Or, if you don’t understand something, I will either send you reading material or explain it myself).
-I expect you to be online on Slack and promptly respond to messages for 8+ hours per workday with notifications turned on.
-I expect you to answer emails in 1 business day or less.
-I expect you to share your work schedule and to-do list with me, and to keep them updated.
-Since this is a full-time role, I expect you to not be working other jobs.

Application Details (additional instructions):
Please make sure to include a portfolio, cover letter and resume/CV.
For your cover letter, please tell me what future you imagine for this company, and what value that future company could provide to customers. One paragraph is enough. Write it as a formal letter.
For your portfolio(s), you can pretty much just send me whatever creative works you have completed or worked on. If something was worked on with other people or is not complete, please specify on your portfolio. Let me know if there is something you are particularly proud of so that I make sure to look at it.

Happy job hunting,

Owen Davies
Physalis Media, LLC