Pickup Music Piano education lead - Full-time, Los Angeles (Online Education) Los Angeles, CA · Full time Company website

Apply for Piano education lead - Full-time, Los Angeles (Online Education)

Pickup Music is a leading music-education company based in Los Angeles that has been growing steadily since 2016. We are the leaders in structured, long form learning with over 50,000 members for guitar, bass, piano and soon drums.

Job title: Piano education lead - Full-time, on location in Los Angeles

I’m Sam Blakelock, co-founder at Pickup Music and I’ll be hiring for this role.

We don’t hire often, so this is a rare opportunity where you’ll be coming in early to help shape piano education at Pickup Music, both in front of and behind the camera.

About us

Pickup Music is a leading music-education company based in Los Angeles that has been growing steadily since 2016. We are the leaders in structured, long form learning with over 50,000 members for guitar, bass, piano and drums. We are an independent, bootstrapped company led by musicians.

You can read more about our company here: https://www.pickupmusic.com/about

About the job

We are looking for a pianist to lead the development of piano lessons, and become the leader of our piano community. This role involves a mix of preparing and teaching lessons on camera, producing other teachers to create lessons, and managing our community of piano learners. 

You’re the right person for the job if you fit the following three requirements:

1. You’re a professional pianist. You can sight-read, improvise fluently, play multiple styles and you have extensive performing experience. We have a preference for jazz pianists over classical pianists. 

2. You’re passionate about creating video lessons to teach beginner to intermediate students.

3. You’re excited to work with a fast-growing music technology company to build something special that helps tens of thousands of people learn music.

Where is it based?

This is a full time role based in Los Angeles. The hours are normal working hours - Monday to Friday. You’ll be in the studio at least 80% of the time but some of your pre and post-production work can be done at home.

What’s the pay?

We normally include salary for jobs but we aren’t listing a salary for this one as we are open to applications of all experience levels.

If you’re the world’s best educator with a strong online presence and an existing audience of paid students, we’re happy to talk. If you’re a college professor looking to work in a new work environment, we’d love to talk.

We offer a 401(k) 4% match, healthcare, 20 days paid leave, sick leave, and parental leave. 

What’s the work look like?

At Pickup Music, we respect and allow time for our team members to shut out the noise, and focus on their deep, meaningful work. For you, this deep work will be primarily writing, producing and filming the world’s best piano curriculum.

Here’s what your first 30 days will look like:

• Week 1: onboarding, where you can meet the team, learn our product and plan your first class with me.
• Week 2: teach a course, with another producer producing you, so you can see what it’s like to do a class end-to-end.
• Week 3: start work on your first learning pathway.

Day to day, you’ll be working with our head of education and production teams. As well as being on camera, you will direct and produce talent and see classes through to publish. 

We don’t expect you to hit the ground running. We’ll be coaching you through how to produce a class at Pickup Music. You’ll learn from our other producers and we’ll iterate quickly from user feedback.

Not based in Los Angeles? We’ll cover your costs to relocate to LA from within the US.

Not in the US? Unfortunately this job is only available for people legally able to work in the US. 

We are not sponsoring visas for this role, and it is not a remote job.

How to apply

This application has three parts:

1. Cover letter and CV. A big part of this role is writing curriculum and scripts so your cover letter should be in your own words. I encourage you to write specifically about why you would like this role and your vision for piano education at Pickup Music and how we can get there. Keep it short and sharp and say what matters most to you. We don’t use AI to look at our applications and will prioritize applications written by humans.

 

2. A video of you teaching. This role will have you on camera teaching so this is the most important part which I will watch first. I’d encourage you not to overthink it, or to make it too polished. Instead, pick any beginner topic - for example, how to play the C major scale, and teach it to a student (not me), in around 5 minutes. It can be filmed with your phone.

3. Links to your playing piano. Please share links to some clips so I can hear you play

The interview process will follow these steps:

• If you get selected for an interview, there will be three interviews and one paid assignment. You’ll pass each step sequentially, and we will email you about each one if you progress to the next stage:
• Interview 1. A short call with me to ask me any questions and for me to get to know you. 
• Interview 2. A second, longer interview.
• One-day paid project in LA
• We’ll work on a real project together for the day. You’ll be paid $500 for the day.
• If you are not based in LA, in addition to paying you, we will cover your travel to LA from within the US and 1-2 nights accommodation.
• Final interview. For the final candidates, you’ll do longer interviews with me, my co-founder and our head of education.
• Job offer and reference checks. We’ll ask for three references to call including two people who have directly managed you and one person you have managed.

We know this is a lot of work so we appreciate the time you’ve taken to consider this role. We look at every application and consider everyone who applies.

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Apply for this job directly on the Pickup Music gusto jobs board: https://jobs.gusto.com/boards/pickup-music-2e915fe1-5584-4df7-a6cd-83852d89e5aa