[Hiring] Co-founder (Education & Pedagogy) @Bluepen AI

Role Description

Please note: This role requires you to be a recent graduate (within the last 5 years) from a recognized German university. This is a strict requirement due to grant eligibility (EXIST and similar programs). If you do not meet this criterion, this role is not for you. We appreciate your interest and encourage you to follow our journey.

We are looking for a co-founder who is an educationist at heart. Someone who can genuinely call themselves an educationist, not because of a title, but because they have spent real time thinking about how children learn, where the system falls short, and what better looks like.

This person will be our navigator inside the German education system. Someone who grew up in it, understands how it actually works, and can open the doors we need opened.

This is not a curriculum-design hire. This is a co-founder seat for someone who went through German schooling themselves, knows how children learn in German classrooms, and will take full ownership of getting BluePen AI into schools. That means pilot access, syllabus alignment, and navigating the legal and regulatory landscape around EdTech, data privacy, and classroom adoption.

You will define what BluePen AI teaches, how it teaches, and why. Grounded in evidence, shaped by German and European curricular standards, and validated through real-world pilots with children, teachers, and parents. You will sit at the strategy table as a co-founder alongside the CEO and CTO.

Responsibilities

• Navigate the German education system end to end: state curricula (Lehrpläne), school approval processes, Kultusministerien requirements, and the decision-making structures that determine what enters a classroom.
• Secure pilot access with schools, school districts, and education authorities across Bundesländer, starting with Saxony-Anhalt.
• Own syllabus alignment and ensure BluePen AI's learning content maps precisely to grade-level curricula across German states.
• Identify and navigate legal and regulatory challenges: data privacy (DSGVO/GDPR as applied to minors), EdTech procurement rules, Schulgesetz requirements, parental consent frameworks, and any compliance hurdles that stand between the product and the classroom.
• Own the pedagogical vision and learning architecture of BluePen AI: what the product teaches, how it adapts, and how learning outcomes are measured.
• Build the evidence base: design classroom pilots, define learning outcome metrics, run validation studies with partner schools and universities.
• Develop and maintain relationships with German education stakeholders: teachers, school administrators, parent associations, and education researchers.
• Co-lead grant applications (EXIST, BMBF, EU Horizon, and similar), especially the pedagogical narrative, impact thesis, and research methodology sections.
• Represent BluePen AI in education forums, conferences, school visits, and ministry conversations, especially where native German and firsthand experience of the system are essential.
• Translate user research into product requirements alongside the CTO: what children struggle with, what teachers actually need.
• Shape BluePen AI's public positioning on education, childhood attention, and responsible technology.

Qualifications

• An educationist. Someone who can look you in the eye and say "I am an educationist" and mean it. You think about learning not because a job requires it, but because you cannot stop thinking about it.
• Native German speaker who personally went through the German school system (Grundschule through Abitur or equivalent). You lived it, you don't just study it. English proficiency B2.
• Recent graduate (within the last 5 years) from a recognized German university, to align with EXIST and similar grant eligibility requirements. Degree in Education Sciences (Erziehungswissenschaften / Pädagogik), Lehramt (teaching degree), Educational Psychology, Learning Sciences, or a closely related field. Master's degree (M.Ed., M.A.) strongly preferred.
• Current or former teacher.
• Deep, lived understanding of the German school system: how Grundschulen work, how state curricula differ, how teachers actually plan lessons, where children fall behind, and how decisions about classroom tools get made.
• Familiarity with the regulatory environment around EdTech in German schools: data privacy for minors, procurement processes, and what it actually takes to get a new product approved for classroom use.
• Genuine intellectual curiosity about how children learn. Not just theory, but observable, evidence-based pedagogy.
• Ideally, practical experience in German classrooms: teaching internships (Schulpraktikum), tutoring, volunteer teaching, after-school programs, or early-career teaching roles.
• Roots in the German education, university, or EdTech ecosystem. Ideally with connections to OVGU, education faculties, or school networks. People you can call who will answer.
• Comfort on stage and in rooms with policymakers, school heads, and ministry officials. You will be BluePen AI's education voice in Germany.
• Complementary strengths to our existing team. We have the tech and the business. We need someone who breathes education.
• Excellent personal fit: we are three people who will make hard decisions together for years. Chemistry comes before every checkbox.

Benefits

• Meaningful co-founder equity, vested over four years with a one-year cliff.
• A real seat at the strategy table, not an advisor or consultant role.
• Formal co-founder title for the entity once established.
• A mission that compounds: the first AI product designed to return attention to children, not steal it.
• Two co-founders who have built together before and know exactly what a third great partner looks like.