About Break Through Tech

Break Through Tech transforms how tech talent is discovered, developed, and connected to opportunity in the age of AI. Working across higher education and industry, Break Through Tech delivers programs nationwide and integrates technical training, work-based learning, mentorship, and career readiness with deep employer partnerships to create more effective and scalable routes into early tech careers. Break Through Tech is actively shaping the field of early tech talent development by identifying what works, translating those insights into replicable models, and helping define more consistent approaches to how talent is prepared, assessed, and hired across institutions and employers.

At a moment when AI is reshaping every aspect of work and society, Break Through Tech’s mission is urgent: to ensure that the people who build what comes next — and who are in the room where the most consequential technology decisions of our time get made — look like the world they will shape. Learn more about our work at www.breakthroughtech.org/.

Position Summary

We are seeking several subject matter experts to partner with Break Through Tech program staff to deliver a first-of-its-kind program for up to 500 undergraduate fellows enrolled in our flagship, extracurricular AI Program.

AI has collapsed the cost of building a first version of almost anything, which has made the ability to build far less scarce than the judgment to know what is worth building. Employers and investors increasingly look for people who can identify a real customer problem, test their assumptions against evidence, and make disciplined decisions about what to pursue — skills that early-career technologists rarely get to practice.

The new 16-week AI-Powered Entrepreneurship program will enable our fellows — who will have already completed a rigorous 9-week Machine Learning Foundations course and a 3-month AI project sponsored by an industry partner — to take a venture from an unexamined idea to an evidence-backed pitch.

With expert guidance and support from their Coaches, fellows will work in teams of three to five to identify a customer problem, interview real customers, build and test an MVP with real users, and pitch their venture to a panel of judges at a culminating Flagship Event.

Across 4 units — Problem Opportunity, Customer Validation, MVP and Prototype, and Pitch and Business Model — fellows will apply the Lean Startup Build-Measure-Learn cycle while using AI tools for research, ideation, synthesis, prototyping, and pitch preparation. Asynchronous coursework will be complemented by virtual Workshops and Maker Days where teams do the work of venture building together, and by independent stretches where teams conduct customer interviews and usability testing in the field.

This is a hands-on coaching role rather than a traditional instructor position. The curriculum supplies the methodology, activities, facilitation guides, and evaluation criteria; Coaches bring the experience, questions, and judgment that help fellows turn those tools into real venture learning. Coaches should be comfortable working with early-stage ambiguity and helping teams make progress without prescribing the answer or taking ownership of the venture.

Coaches for this Specialization will each support 8–10 project teams (about 40 fellows). Coaches will be expected to facilitate end-to-end the live virtual events and design short concept reviews for them; form and support venture teams; monitor fellows’ progress in their Canvas course; grade and provide feedback on team deliverables against program rubrics; and host virtual office hours.

Essential Responsibilities and Duties

The essential duties of this role are grouped into these categories, with the approximate percentage of time spent on each category indicated below

• Event Preparation and Facilitation (50%)

• Facilitate and design short concept reviews for 4 Workshops (1.5 hours each)
• Facilitate and design short concept reviews for 3 Maker Days (3.5 hours each)
• Facilitate and support the culminating Flagship Event (3.5 hours), evaluating team pitches from an angel investor’s perspective alongside industry judges and volunteers
• Review fellows’ Idea Board submissions ahead of Workshop 1 and form venture teams of three to five fellows around shared problem spaces
• Create and monitor breakout rooms for team-based activities, rotating through every team to observe …