The Explosion of Remote Jobs in EdTech and Where to Find Them

by Nathan Allen

Teachers have caught the attention of the EdTech industry, as tech companies recognize the need for educator input in the development of technology.

At a recent International Society for Technology in Education conference, Deborah Quazzo, managing partner of GSV Ventures, said "If you’re building ed-tech products, you need to be talking to the people who actually use it. If you don’t have practitioners in the room, you’re really missing the point.”

Quazzo's comments came during an ISTE panel discussion titled "So You Want to Work for an Ed-Tech Company," which centered around the transition for teachers from the classroom to the tech industry.

More than ever before, people thirsty to learn and companies eager for a skilled workforce are using online technology to connect. The result is a vigorous surge in EdTech jobs for everyone from pedagogical wizards with mad tech skills to cybersecurity experts, UX developers, and content automation specialists.

Teachers are among the latest experts that EdTech companies are recruiting.

For teachers (or other professionals) interested in making the leap to EdTech, we've assembled a list of companies that offer some of the best remote jobs in EdTech and some data on why this is one of the hottest job fields in the tech industry today. Let's start with wow factor!

With Web3, AI, blockchain technology and data science emerging rapidly, the EdTech industry is rising up to meet the need for skilled workers. Contrary to pedestrian ideas, EdTech isn't just focused on K-12 learners, though that segment has evolved at record pace. Instead, the opportunities have expanded beyond school children and collegiate design to corporate training, workforce development and a response to a growing need for advanced digital and human skills, according to Coursera's 2022 Campus Skills Report.

The EdTech market in India alone is set to hit $5 billion by 2025. At the global level, EdTech valuation hit just under $90 billion in 2020, with the EdTech Market report projecting a 46 percent of growth in the industry will happen in North America within three years.

To recognize the speed of growth in this industry consider that in 2020, the pace of US investment in EdTech surged. EdTech ventures raised $2.2 billion across 130 deals in 2020—both all-time records for the industry at that time. Now consider that venture capitalists invested $20.8 billion globally in 1,500 rounds of funding in 2021, according to the HolonIQ report.

Companies like Coursera, Duolingo and Udemy, all pursued initial public offerings in 2021. This made way for newer ventures like Articulate, Degreed, Guild Education, Workera, and Udacity to step into the learning investment spotlight.

And, not only are EdTech companies raising money, they are on the cutting edge of some of the most fascinating tech trends happening in 2022. Whether it's tech-enabled immersive learning or AI for special needs students, EdTech is a career where your contributions are sure to help shape the future.

Now that you're pumped about EdTech's potential in the world, let's talk about where you can find your future in it.

The Best EdTech Companies for Remote Jobs

With the EdTech boom comes an explosion of new remote EdTech jobs on nearly all continents. There are open positions at shiny startups based in Silicon Valley as well as the more seasoned online learning companies.

Here are just a few companies offering a substantial number of remote job opportunities in the EdTech industry.

Chegg
The Santa Clara-based company founded in 2005 meets students where they are -- offering digital and physical textbook rentals, textbook sales, study support and services, and specialized learning tools. For instance, if your student is struggling with math, Chegg's Math Solver program offers a solution. They even offer career advice!
Chegg offers an equally broad range of job opportunities--everything from finance manager roles to product developers and subject matter experts and litigation roles.

Teachers Pay Teachers
TpT describes itself as a "go-to platform created by teachers, for teachers." It is a global marketplace where teachers and educators exchange instructional materials and digital tools. The platform boasts a base of more than 7 million educators, including the vast majority of America's educators.
EdTech jobs at TpT range from finance, sales, and marketing to multiple software engineer and data engineering jobs.

McGraw Hill Education
McGraw Hill is one of the "big three" educational publishers in the country and has been around since most of America's schools were established. Just because they were founded in 1888, though, doesn't mean they are not an EdTech leader. In fact, the company boasts a goal "to expand the possibilities of content and technology to help millions of educators, learners, and professionals around the world achieve success."
EdTech roles ranging from instructional design to product design and software engineering to site reliability are available at MHE.

Udemy
Udemy is one of the hottest EdTech companies in the US. According to Udemy, now more than a decade old, they’ve hired thousands of instructors to teach roughly 50 million students in 75 different languages. Udemy is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has global offices with many remote openings. Currently, Udemy has more than 200 job openings, including dozens of positions in engineering, data, and sales.

Coursera
Coursera is one of the largest and most prolific online learning companies, especially for higher education. Born out of Stanford’s computer science department in 2012, it has nearly 1,800 employees at outposts around the globe. Coursera has openings for remote positions all over the globe and at its Mountain View headquarters.

Udacity
Udacity, which offers nanodegree programs in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics, is another Bay Area-based, remote-first EdTech venture flush with investor cash and remote job openings. Udacity has remote openings in the usual areas like engineering, marketing, product development, and sales. But it also hires mentors specializing in the areas in which it teaches.

Degreed
Remote-first Degreed is one of the newer US-based EdTech companies focused on upskilling to help propel career growth. Its model focuses on offering to teach inspired learners the skills they need to succeed or advance in their careers. The company is smaller than some of the others listed and has dozens of remote openings in sales, engineering, product design and management, operations, and client experience.

Guild Education
Guild Education has helped companies like Walmart, Lowe's, Taco Bell and others to offer education and college degrees as a benefit to their employees. Based in Denver, Colorado, Guild works directly with the employers to help employees without high school diplomas or college degrees the credentials and the skills they need to achieve greater things in their jobs and in the world.
Guild Education needs people skilled in educational technology to help them build, improve and run their platform. They have current openings in accounting, client services, marketing and across-the-board technology options.

Future of Remote Work and EdTech

The EdTech sector is continuing to grow. Prestigious universities like Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Carnegie Mellon University have been innovating in the EdTech space for years, legitimizing online learning prior to the pandemic. Since more students have become accepting of online learning, it will likely gain mainstream traction.

While many K-12 schools have frantically updated digital learning over the past couple of years, the real growth in EdTech seems to be in areas like upskilling, tutoring, and online post-secondary education. So even as major school districts and universities across the country return to in-person learning, expect EdTech to continue its growth.

Professionals looking for remote jobs in the burgeoning field of EdTech can peruse the platforms and websites listed as a jumping-off point. With anticipated growth, many established companies as well as nascent startups—now just a glimmer in the founders’ eyes—will likely continue to expand and bolster their remote workforces.