Who We Are:

Emerge Career’s mission is to break the cycle of poverty and incarceration. We’re not just building software; we’re creating pathways to real second chances. Through an all-in-one platform deeply embedded within the criminal justice system, we recruit, train, and place justice-impacted individuals into life-changing careers.

Our vision is to become the country’s unified workforce development system, replacing disconnected brick-and-mortar job centers with one integrated, tech-powered solution that meets low-income individuals exactly where they are. Today, the federal government spends billions annually on education and training programs, yet only about 70% of participants graduate, just 38.6% secure training-related employment, and average first-year earnings hover around $34,708.

By contrast, our seven-person team has already outperformed the job centers in two entire states (Vermont and South Dakota) in just the past year. With an 89% graduation rate and 92% of graduates securing training-related employment, our alumni aren’t just getting jobs—they’re launching new lives with average first-year earnings of $77,352. The results speak for themselves, and we’re just getting started.

Before Emerge, our founders Zo and Gabe co-founded Ameelio, an award-winning tech nonprofit that is dismantling the prison communication duopoly. Backed by tech luminaries like Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, and Jack Dorsey, and by major criminal-justice philanthropies such as Arnold Ventures and the Mellon Foundation, Ameelio became a recognized leader in the space. Because of this experience both Zo and Gabe understood what it took to create change from within the system. After serving over 1M people impacted by incarceration, they witnessed firsthand the gap in second-chance opportunities and the chronic unemployment plaguing those impacted by the justice system. Emerge Career is committed to solving this issue.

Our students are at the heart of our work. Their journeys have captured national attention on CBS, NBC, and in The Boston Globe, and our programs now serve entire states and cities. And we’re not doing it alone: our vision has attracted support from Alexis Ohanian (776),  Michael Seibel, Y Combinator, the Opportunity Fund, and public figures like Diana Taurasi, Deandre Ayton, and Marshawn Lynch. All of us believe that, with the right mix of technology and hands-on practice, we can redefine workforce development and deliver true second chances at scale.

Why We Do This:

Emerge Career was designed to tackle two systemic issues: recidivism, fueled by post-incarceration unemployment and poverty, and labor shortages in key industries. Over 60% of formerly incarcerated people remain unemployed a year after incarceration, seeking work but not finding it. The reality is shocking, workforce development programs are severely limited inside prison, with only one-third of incarcerated people ever participating. To worsen, the available prison jobs offer meager wages, often less than $1 per hour, and often do not equip individuals with the skills for long-term stable employment.

The Role

We're looking for a Customer Engineer to help us tackle the challenge of managing customer support across text messages and email at scale. This isn't a traditional support role—we need someone who can help us build systems capable of exponentially serving more users.

You'll split your time between:

• Direct support work (~2-3 hours/day on weekdays): Achieving inbox zero, answering student inquiries via SMS and email
• Systems building: Working with LLMs, refining dashboards, evaluating vendors, and automating workflows

This is a hands-on opportunity to understand our users deeply while building the infrastructure to serve thousands more.

What You'll Do

• Manage daily student support across text and email channels
• Build and refine LLM-powered tools to improve response quality and efficiency
• Identify patterns in support requests to inform product and process improvements
• Evaluate vendor solutions against our requirements
• Create dashboards to track support metrics and surface insights
• Document processes and build toward scalable, automated support systems

What We're Looking For

• Currently enrolled in a CS or related program
• Genuine excitement about serving users—you see support as a feature, not a chore
• Strong attention to detail (small mistakes compound in our work)
• Comfort working with LLMs, APIs, and data tools
• Builder mindset: you find a way or create one
• Bias toward action over perfect plans

React, NodeJS, Typescript, GraphQL