Technical Lead (part-time)
Cadenza · Toronto · 15 to 20 hours a week · $22 an hour (CAD) · 4 month term
About Cadenza
Cadenza turns a student's Canvas courses into a week by week study plan. It reads every syllabus, reading and deadline. Then it builds each week as Learn, Practice and Checkpoint, ending in one honest readiness score. It is live with U of T students, and Cadenza is a venture member of InnovED at OISE, U of T's edtech accelerator. (studycadenza.com)
The role
You will be Cadenza's first technical hire. You will own how the system works, from the Canvas import to the AI that writes and grades each week. You work directly with the founder. The hours fit around your classes and exams, and we prefer U of T students.
What you will own
- The AI pipeline. Turning a professor's own files into study material, grading written answers, and keeping quality high and cost per course low.
- The data layer. Postgres schema, row level security, migrations and the Canvas import.
- Reliability. Evals, tests and monitoring, so we catch a wrong answer before a student does.
- Privacy and security. Read-only Canvas access, what reaches a model, and what gets deleted.
- Technical decisions and code review. Later, helping hire the next engineers.
Who we want
- You have shipped software that real people use. You can show it.
- You are very good with AI in production: prompts, structured outputs, retrieval, evals, cost and latency.
- You think in systems. You find the real root cause and fix it once.
- You are strong in TypeScript and SQL, and at home in Postgres.
- You care how students learn, and you have opinions about studying and feedback.
- You write clearly, and you say "I don't know yet" when that is true.
- You own your work without being chased.
Nice to have
- Next.js App Router, Supabase or Vercel.
- Canvas or other LMS APIs, or past edtech work.
- You use AI coding agents every day and review their output hard. We build this way.
- Time as a TA, tutor or peer mentor.
Stack
Next.js and TypeScript, Supabase (Postgres, auth, storage), OpenAI, Vercel and the Canvas API.
Pay and equity
$22 an hour on a 4 month term, with an extension possible at the end. Equity is possible for the right person.
How to apply
Apply here, and email wesley@studycadenza.com with the subject "Technical Lead". Send three things:
- A link to something you built.
- A few lines on an AI system you shipped, and one thing that went wrong with it.
- Your weekly availability this term.
No cover letter. Accommodations are available on request at every stage of hiring.
