[Hiring] Senior Writer @Cartwheel

Role Description

Join Cartwheel to help tackle the student mental health crisis. Kids spend most of their days in the classroom, and teachers and staff, who play a vital role in their development, are often the first to notice when something is off. With 1 in 5 young people struggling with mental health, schools are getting crushed by a downward spiral in student crises and staff burnout.

Cartwheel is an early-stage company building a new kind of mental health program for kids that puts schools at the center. We see our role as supporting school staff who see kids every single day. This means:

• Earlier intervention
• Higher student and family engagement in care
• Better coordination among the trusted adults in a student’s life

Kids shouldn't just aspire to get out of bed and drag themselves to class. They should be able to experience joy. They deserve to envision and build a life they’re excited to live. If you join Cartwheel, you’ll help make this vision a reality for millions of students across the country.

We're looking for an extraordinary writer to help us make the case — to governors, legislators, agency leaders, and school district decision-makers — that Cartwheel is the partner that turns those investments into real outcomes for kids and families. This is not a grant writing role; this is a storytelling and persuasion role.

The best candidate for this role probably didn't grow up in government contracting. You're someone who learned to write by writing — in a newsroom, at a magazine, in a publishing house — and you know how to make complex ideas clear, how to build a narrative arc, and how to write for an audience that doesn't share your vocabulary. You care about the craft and you want to point it at something that matters.

Role type: W2, Full-Time, Salaried position

Salary range: $150,000 – $170,000 plus competitive equity package

Location: Remote

Target Start: June 2026

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional writing experience, with a strong portfolio that demonstrates clear, narrative-driven writing for a general audience — journalism, longform, editorial, or similar backgrounds strongly preferred
• Demonstrated ability to take complex, technical, or data-heavy subject matter and make it accessible and compelling without dumbing it down
• Experience writing for or communicating with senior decision-makers who are busy, skeptical, and not experts in your subject area
• Sharp editorial judgment: You can look at a 30-page proposal draft and see what's missing, what's bloated, and what's buried
• Comfort working across a wide range of formats, from a tightly structured RFP response to a narrative briefing to a one-page leave-behind
• Genuine interest in youth mental health, education, or public policy — you don't need deep domain expertise on day one, but you need to care enough to build it quickly

Requirements

• Background in journalism, magazine writing, book editing, or editorial roles at a major publication
• Experience writing proposals, policy briefs, or persuasive materials for government audiences — even if that wasn't your primary career
• Familiarity with K-12 education and/or health care
• Experience working in or alongside mission-driven organizations and/or government

Benefits

• Mission-oriented and inclusive colleagues who will go to bat for you
• Employer-sponsored PPO medical, vision, and dental coverage
• Generous PTO, including company-wide closure the last week of December
• Meaningful equity ownership stake in Cartwheel
• 401(k) with employer match
• Annual educational stipend
• Macbook