Fast Facts

The Audio Generation & QA Specialist at Khan Academy Kids is responsible for generating and reviewing character audio, ensuring quality and accuracy for young learners while collaborating with creative and engineering teams.

Responsibilities: Key responsibilities include running audio generation workflows, quality assurance listening, managing files, tracking output coverage, and documenting communications with stakeholders.

Skills: Required skills include comfort with macOS Terminal, proficient file management in Finder, audio clarity assessment, and proficiency in spreadsheets for tracking purposes.

Qualifications: Preferred qualifications include familiarity with XCode, audio editing tools, and experience in children's media or educational content, alongside a basic understanding of phonetics and TTS/ASR tools.

Location: This position can be performed remotely within the Continental US, Hawaii, and Canada.

Compensation: $40 - $50 / Hourly

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY

Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to deliver a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Our proven learning platform offers free, high-quality supplemental learning content and practice that cover Pre-K - 12th grade and early college core academic subjects, focusing on math and science. We have over 181 million registered learners globally and are committed to improving learning outcomes for students worldwide, focusing on learners in historically under-resourced communities.ABOUT

ABOUT KHAN ACADEMY KIDS

Khan Academy Kids is a free and fun learning program for children ages 2 to 8. Kodi Bear and a cast of animated characters lead children on a personalized education journey filled with fun, standards-aligned activities in early literacy, math, executive functioning and social emotional skills. Built by a small but mighty team, Khan Academy Kids is used by millions of children in homes and classrooms around the world. 

OUR COMMUNITY 

Our students, teachers, and parents come from all walks of life, and so do we. Our team includes people from academia, traditional/non-traditional education, big tech companies, and tiny startups. We hire great people from diverse backgrounds and experiences because it makes our company stronger. We value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as necessary to achieve our mission and impact the communities we serve. We know that transforming education starts in-house with learning about ourselves and our colleagues. We strive to be world-class in investing in our people and commit to developing you as a professional.

THE ROLE

In this role, you’ll help generate, organize, and review character audio for the Khan Academy Kids team. The work blends light technical operation, meticulous file management, and careful listening for age-appropriateness, quality, and phonological accuracy. You’ll collaborate closely with our Creative, Content, and Engineering teams to keep our audio pipeline humming and our youngest learners delighted.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Run scripted audio generation workflows. Use Terminal to execute provided scripts that use speech synthesis tools to produce batches of audio assets from text prompts 
• Prompt speech synthesis tools. Convert standard English sentences to appropriate syntax for prompting speech synthesis tools, modifying prompts where necessary to generate the best sounding output 
• Quality assurance listening. Review audio for clarity, consistency, pacing, character voice continuity, and child-appropriateness; verify phonological accuracy for letter sounds, phoneme blending/segmenting, and simple word pronunciations
• Manage files with care. Use Finder to organize outputs, following naming conventions and keeping folder structures tidy; move, rename, and reorganize assets as they advance through the pipeline
• Track coverage and completeness. Confirm all prompts in a given batch are produced, verifying the batch list against generated files; resolve or escalate anomalies (missing, truncated, or misnamed clips) 
• Document and communicate. Share concise notes with Creative/Content on performance and character nuances; report issues to Engineering and retest after fixes or updates
• Iterate quickly. Apply feedback from stakeholders, regenerate affected clips, and maintain a clear audit trail of changes
• Uphold standards. Follow checklists and acceptance criteria; refine QA guides as we learn

WHAT YOU BRING

Technical comfort:

• Comfort using macOS Terminal to run scripts and interpret basic console output
• Proficient file management in Finder to maintain consistent naming and structure
• Proficient spreadsheet skills (Google Sheets/Excel) to maintain asset lists and QA trackers

Audio sensibility: 

• Careful ear for clarity, pacing, and consistency
• Able to identify common issues (clipping, audible breaths, robotic prosody) and assess age-appropriateness

Early literacy awareness: 

• Working understanding of letter sounds and simple phonics patterns
• Able to judge when a letter/phoneme is produced accurately for young learners

Attention to detail: 

• Notices when a filename doesn’t match the prompt, when one file in a batch is 0:00 long, or when a character’s voice drifts.

Communication and collaboration: 

• Writes clear, structured updates and status notes
• Works effectively with varied stakeholders; incorporates feedback promptly

Nice to have: 

• Familiarity with XCode
• Familiarity with json file formatting
• Basic audio editing (e.g., Audacity)
• Familiarity with TTS/ASR tools and workflows
• Introductory phonetics/IPA knowledge
• Experience with children’s media or educational content

The hourly rate for this position is between $40-50/hour. The pay range for this position is a general guideline only. The rate offered will depend on internal pay equity and the candidate’s relevant skills, experience, qualifications, and job market data.  

MORE ABOUT US

• Sal’s TED talk from 2011
• Sal’s TED talk from 2015
• Sal's TED talk from 2023
• Our team: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team

OUR COMPANY VALUES

Live & breathe learners

We deeply understand and empathize with our users. We leverage user insights, research, and experience to build content, products, services, and experiences that our users trust and love. Our success is defined by the success of our learners and educators.

Take a stand

As a company, we have conviction in our aspirational point of view of how education will evolve. The work we do is in service to moving towards that point of view. However, we also listen, learn and flex in the face of new data, and commit to evolving this point of view as the industry and our users evolve.

Embrace diverse perspectives

We are a diverse community. We seek out and embrace a diversity of voices, perspectives and life experiences leading to stronger, more inclusive teams and better outcomes. As individuals, we are committed to bringing up tough topics and leaning into different points of view with curiosity. We actively listen, learn and collaborate to gain a shared understanding. When a decision is made, we commit to moving forward as a united team.

Work responsibly and sustainably

We understand that achieving our audacious mission is a marathon, so we set realistic timelines and we focus on delivery that also links to the bigger picture. As a non-profit, we are supported by the generosity of donors as well as strategic partners, and understand our responsibility to our finite resources. We spend every dollar as though it were our own. We are responsible for the impact we have on the world and to each other. We ensure our team and company stay healthy and financially sustainable.

Bring out the joy

We are committed to making learning a joyful process. This informs what we build for our users and the culture we co-create with our teammates, partners and donors.

Cultivate learning mindset

We believe in the power of growth for learners and for ourselves. We constantly learn and teach to improve our offerings, ourselves, and our organization. We learn from our mistakes and aren’t afraid to fail. We don't let past failures or successes stop us from taking future bold action and achieving our goals.

Deliver wow

We insist on high standards and deliver delightful, effective end-to-end experiences that our users can rely on. We choose to focus on fewer things — each of which aligns to our ambitious vision — so we can deliver high-quality experiences that accelerate positive measurable learning with our strategic partners.

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we encourage candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.

As part of this commitment, Khan Academy will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact [email protected]