Senior Full-Stack Developer for Gamified AI-Powered Learning Platform

We are looking for a **senior full-stack developer** to help design and build a modern learning platform for high school students. This is not intended to be a traditional LMS or a simple website where students watch videos and complete assignments. Our goal is to create a product that students genuinely enjoy using and want to return to regularly. The platform should combine elements of products such as **Duolingo, Khan Academy, Quizlet, and modern AI tutoring tools**, while developing its own identity and user experience. The ideal developer should be comfortable thinking beyond individual features and helping us build a scalable product architecture from the beginning. ### What We Want to Build The platform will initially focus on high school students and should provide a personalized, engaging learning experience. Core functionality will likely include: * Student registration, authentication, and profiles * Personalized student dashboards * Courses, subjects, lessons, and learning paths * Interactive quizzes and practice questions * Question banks with difficulty levels and categories * Progress tracking by subject and topic * AI-powered tutoring and explanations * Personalized practice based on student weaknesses * XP and leveling systems * Daily and weekly learning goals * Learning streaks * Achievements and badges * Challenges * Leaderboards * Friend and social features * Student performance analytics * Notifications and reminders * Responsive mobile-first design The platform should eventually be able to support subjects such as mathematics, English, science, SAT preparation, and AP-level material. ### AI Tutoring AI will be an important part of the platform, but we do not want a basic chatbot placed inside an education website. We want the AI layer to understand the student's learning context. For example, the system should eventually be able to consider: * What the student has studied * Which questions they answered incorrectly * Topics where they are struggling * Their current proficiency level * Previous conversations with the tutor * Upcoming learning goals * Appropriate question difficulty The AI tutor should guide students toward understanding rather than simply providing answers. Experience integrating OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or similar LLM APIs is highly desirable. ### Gamification and Student Engagement Student engagement is one of the most important parts of this project. We want learning to feel interactive and rewarding rather than like another school management system. Examples include: * XP for completing learning activities * Levels and progression * Daily streaks * Weekly challenges * Achievement badges * Leaderboards * Friend competitions * Daily quests * Progress celebrations * Personalized goals You should understand that these systems are not simply visual features. They require properly designed backend logic, event tracking, progression rules, and data models. ### User Experience We are looking for someone who understands the difference between building functional software and building a product teenagers actually enjoy using. The interface should feel modern, fast, intuitive, and mobile-friendly. We do **not** want the visual experience of a traditional school LMS. Students should be able to open the application and immediately see things such as: * Continue your learning streak * Today's challenge * Recommended practice * Current XP * Progress toward the next level * Friends' activity * Areas that need improvement Strong frontend and product UX judgment will therefore be important. ### Technical Experience We Are Looking For You should have strong professional experience with modern full-stack application development. Experience with technologies such as the following is relevant: **Frontend** * React * Next.js * TypeScript * Tailwind CSS or comparable UI frameworks **Backend** * Node.js * Python * FastAPI, Django, NestJS, or similar frameworks * REST and/or GraphQL APIs **Database** * PostgreSQL * Redis * Strong relational data modeling **AI** * OpenAI API * Anthropic Claude * Gemini * Prompt and context management * Structured LLM outputs * RAG or personalized AI systems **Infrastructure** * AWS, Azure, GCP, Supabase, or similar services * Docker * CI/CD * Secure authentication * Logging and monitoring You do not need to use exactly this stack. We are open to architecture recommendations from an experienced developer. ### Experience That Would Be Especially Valuable We are particularly interested in developers who have previously built one or more of the following: * EdTech platforms * Learning management systems * Quiz or assessment platforms * AI tutoring systems * Educational SaaS products * Gamified applications * Social or community platforms * Student progress tracking systems * Personalized recommendation systems Please do not simply tell us that you are a React or full-stack developer. We want to know whether you have solved comparable product and architecture problems before. ### Initial MVP We do not intend to build every possible feature in the first release. The first version will likely concentrate on a smaller learning experience such as **high school mathematics and/or SAT preparation**. A potential MVP could include: 1. Student authentication and profiles 2. Student dashboard 3. Topics and learning paths 4. Question and quiz engine 5. Student answer history 6. Progress tracking 7. AI tutor 8. Personalized practice recommendations 9. XP and leveling 10. Learning streaks 11. Basic leaderboard 12. Administrative content management 13. Responsive web application We want the MVP architecture to allow additional subjects, social features, mobile applications, and more advanced personalization to be added later without rebuilding the entire system. ### What We Expect From the Developer We are looking for someone capable of taking significant ownership of the product. We expect you to be able to: * Understand the business and product goals * Recommend a practical architecture * Identify technical risks before development * Design scalable data models * Build clean frontend and backend systems * Think carefully about security and student data * Develop reusable components * Write maintainable production-quality code * Test important workflows * Document the system * Communicate clearly about technical decisions * Help prioritize what should and should not be included in the MVP We do not want someone who simply waits for detailed instructions for every button and API endpoint. We value developers who can look at a requirement, understand the underlying product objective, and recommend the strongest implementation. ### Long-Term Opportunity This is intended to become a real product rather than a short prototype. If the initial collaboration is successful, there will be opportunities to continue working on: * Additional subjects * Advanced AI personalization * Student social features * Teacher dashboards * Parent dashboards * Mobile applications * School accounts * Subscription features * Advanced analytics * Adaptive testing * Content authoring systems We therefore prefer someone interested in a longer-term relationship rather than only completing a small one-time task. ### When Applying Please answer the following questions: **1. What is the most similar platform you have previously built?** Describe specifically what you personally developed. **2. Have you built a learning, quiz, assessment, LMS, or EdTech platform before?** If yes, explain the student workflow and the technologies involved. **3. Have you implemented gamification features such as XP, levels, streaks, achievements, challenges, or leaderboards?** Please describe how they worked. **4. Have you integrated AI or LLM functionality into a production application?** Explain what the AI actually did within the product. **5. How would you approach the architecture of a platform like this?** We are not looking for a complete technical specification, but we would like to understand how you think about the frontend, backend, database, AI layer, and future scalability. **6. If you were responsible for the MVP, which features would you build first and which features would you postpone?** We are especially interested in the reasoning behind your answer. Please include links, screenshots, or descriptions of relevant applications you have personally worked on. Generic applications will be easy to identify. We are primarily interested in developers who can demonstrate **directly relevant product experience, strong engineering judgment, and the ability to take ownership of a sophisticated platform from MVP through production.**