About us

Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.

Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages.

Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.

About this role

We are looking for a full-time Senior ESL/EFL Learning Designer to join Speak’s Learning & Curriculum team and help deliver high-quality English learning experiences for learners globally.

In this role, you will own and drive scoped ESL/EFL content initiatives, designing engaging, in-app learning experiences grounded in strong pedagogy and learner empathy. You will manage content projects with multiple stakeholders and collaborate closely with teammates across markets and time zones to bring learning content from concept through launch.

If you’re an experienced ESL/EFL educator with a strong track record creating learning content at an ed tech company, who can execute end-to-end independently and thrives in creative, cross-functional, global work, we’d love to meet you.

What you’ll be doing

• Contribute to ESL/EFL curriculum development, balancing pedagogical efficacy, appropriate difficulty, and learner engagement.

• Design and write engaging, effective learning materials (e.g., lesson scripts, activities, vocabulary lists) in English for ESL/EFL learners at different proficiency levels, operating with minimal oversight.

• Manage end-to-end delivery of defined ESL/EFL content projects involving multiple contributors, ensuring clear timelines, ownership, and communication throughout the project lifecycle.

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional partners and teammates across global markets and time zones

• Contribute to quarterly and annual planning for Speak’s ESL/EFL learner strategy.

• Evaluate content effectiveness and proactively propose improvements by leveraging QA results, analytics, and user interviews

• Own the quality and consistency of ESL/EFL content within your assigned scope

• Help strengthen content standards and workflows across the Learning Design team by contributing to peer reviews, sharing best practices and learnings, and participating in training

What We’re Looking For

Required

• Native level fluency in verbal and written English - able to produce engaging lesson materials in English

• Proven experience designing ESL/EFL curriculum or learning content for English learners at an ed tech company

• Strong instructional writing and curriculum planning skills, with excellent attention to detail and pedagogical rigor

• Excellent user empathy for ESL/EFL learners across proficiency levels, with a strong judgement on what makes a learning material effective and engaging

• Strong project management and organizational skills, with experience collaborating with multiple stakeholders or contributors

• Clear and effective written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to apply qualitative and quantitative insights to improve course quality

• Passion for technology-assisted language learning and comfort working with modern tools (e.g., Notion, Slack, chatGPT, Claude, Dropbox, internal tooling, etc.)

Preferred

• Bilingual or multilingual background, or demonstrated cultural familiarity with one or more of the following EFL learner markets: France, Japan, Korea, LATAM, Taiwan, or Vietnam

• Experience working with AI in a professional setting

Why work at Speak

1. Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.

2. Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.

3. Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.

4. Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.

Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.