We trained 1,500+ learners before our strategic pause. We are back — and building the team that takes SMOG further than its first chapter ever reached. This is what it looks like to be early at something that matters.
Not a job description. A window into what it actually feels like to build something this real.
You walk into a secondary school in Sagamu. Forty students who have never touched a robot are about to. You set up the mBot2. The principal is watching from the back of the room. In twenty minutes, the first student makes their robot move — and the room changes. That moment is yours to own every week.
You're in a hall with teams from seventeen countries. Your students are at the table. They built this. You helped build them. The judge asks a question. Your student answers without hesitation. You already knew what that would feel like — because you prepared them for it.
Session packs. Progress reports. Teacher certification. Weekly rhythms. SMOG is not a collection of events — it is a running system. You will learn to build, run, and improve a system that keeps delivering whether you're in the room or not. That skill is yours forever.
Nigeria has 1.2 billion young people entering the global workforce by 2040. Most of them are in school right now. What gets built inside those schools in the next five years determines what that workforce looks like. You are one of the people building it. That is not a metaphor.
This is not a job spec. These are the four things we look for before anything else.
Above everything else. SMOG moves fast. The environment rewards people who learn on their feet, adapt without being told, and improve every week without being asked.
First filterVerbal presence and confidence in a room. You can hold a session, manage a principal, and explain a robotics concept to an 8-year-old — all in the same day.
EssentialComputer Science is ideal. Robotics exposure, engineering, or any tech-adjacent discipline is accepted. What we cannot work with is zero interest in how technology works.
PreferredNon-negotiable. Not performative. You want to see Nigerian students on international stages, competing at the highest level — and you want to build the system that gets them there.
Non-negotiableFounding team positions across cluster cities and remote operations. Both tracks work together to install and run the SMOG system inside schools.
You own a cluster.
Every partner school in your city. Every Innovation Teacher trained inside those schools. Every principal relationship that determines whether SMOG stays for year two. All of it runs through you.
The Cluster Lead is not a senior facilitator. It is a small general — running an operation, not a session.
You have led something before — a team, a programme, an operation — at a similar stress level. You know what it costs and you are still here.
You carry technical credibility and genuine human warmth simultaneously. The combination is rare. When found, SMOG moves fast.
You are comfortable with accountability without infrastructure. In the early phase, you will build the systems you wish already existed.
You are the operational lead inside every partner school in your cluster.
You run Innovation sessions, train the school's Innovation Teachers, and own the relationship between SMOG and school leadership on the ground.
This is not a teaching role. It is a systems role. You build something that runs without you — and then prove it does.
You can train a veteran teacher and match the energy of a 12-year-old in the same afternoon. That range is not a bonus. It is the job.
You hold a room — whether it is forty students who have never touched a robot, or a principal who is deciding whether to sign a second-year agreement.
You learn faster than you are taught. You are comfortable with technology — not because you are a specialist, but because you are curious and you do not stop until you understand.
The pipeline does not fill itself.
The School Outreach Associate finds, warms, and qualifies every school relationship before it reaches the founder or Cluster Lead. You are the first contact, the follow-up, and the intelligence source that tells SMOG which schools are ready.
You are a natural communicator who does not need a script to open a conversation.
You read rooms quickly — you know within minutes whether a school leadership contact is curious, sceptical, or ready. You respond accordingly without losing the brand register.
You are persistent without being annoying. You know the difference.
Every SMOG session produces something worth showing the world. Your job is to make sure the world sees it.
You capture, edit, and publish the proof that SMOG works — student output, teacher moments, competition footage, session energy. You are the reason the next school believes before the demo.
You have made content before — not necessarily for a brand this size, but you understand framing, light, and the difference between a moment and a clip.
You know when to put the phone down and be present. The best content comes from people who understand what they are documenting.
You move fast. The 48-hour deploy rule is not a guideline.
Demo days are SMOG's most important conversion events.
The Demo Day Assistant makes sure nothing breaks — equipment is ready, the room is set, the content is captured, and the facilitation team has everything they need to focus entirely on the principal and the students.
You are the operational backbone of every demo. Invisible when things go well. Irreplaceable when they don't.
You are calm under pressure. Not performatively calm — actually calm. The kind of person who fixes the problem before announcing there was one.
You are physically capable — demo equipment is heavy, setup is fast, and energy is high. You bring yours.
You pay attention to detail without being told to. A dead battery on demo day is not an equipment failure. It is a preparation failure.
Not every school session needs a Senior Facilitator. But every school session needs to go well.
Session Support provides the additional capacity that makes SMOG's delivery reliable at scale — helping facilitate sessions, supporting Innovation Teachers during practical activities, and ensuring student output standards are met every week.
You genuinely enjoy being in a room with young people learning something new. Not as a performance — as a real preference.
You support without overshadowing. You know when to step in and when to step back. Both require judgment, not instructions.
Every SMOG session runs from a session pack. You build them.
The Curriculum and Session Pack Developer translates the NERDC 2025 Digital Technologies mandate and the CSTA K-12 framework into a 40-minute experience that a trained Innovation Teacher can run independently — every week, every term, for every level from Grade 3 through Senior School Year 3.
This is not content creation. It is instructional architecture.
You think in sequences. You understand how learning builds — what must come before what, and why skipping steps produces students who perform but do not understand.
Test: given one NERDC scheme topic, you can design a 40-minute session in 24 hours. The quality of that design is the application.
Every post that goes out under SMOG's name is your responsibility.
You execute the content calendar, manage community engagement across Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and ensure the 48-hour deploy rule is never broken. You do not set strategy. You execute it — with precision, speed, and genuine understanding of what SMOG is and why it matters.
You understand the difference between posting and communicating. Most people who apply will not.
You have read and absorbed the SMOG brand voice completely. Every post you draft passes the voice test before it reaches a human reviewer.
You are fast without being careless. The 48-hour deploy rule is not a suggestion.
SMOG is a running system. You keep it running.
The Operations Coordinator manages the operational infrastructure that every school, facilitator, and team member depends on — scheduling, reporting, communications flow, logistics, and the small decisions that, when handled correctly, nobody notices, and when missed, everything breaks.
You find ambiguity uncomfortable and resolve it through structure.
You do not let things fall through gaps — because you have already identified the gaps and built something to catch them.
Test: here is SMOG's current session report workflow — what is broken about it? Three specific things and one proposed fix for each means you can do the job. "It seems fine" means you cannot.
These roles are not yet active. If one of these is your lane — send your name and a 60-second voice note to WhatsApp. We will reach out when the time is right.
The application includes a 60-second video or voice note. Record it before you start — you'll know what to say. Your phone camera is fine. We are not looking for production quality. We are looking for the person behind the application.
Address all three in your video:
What educational gap or STEM challenge have you personally witnessed in Nigerian schools? What tells you something is broken?
What is your unfair advantage in a technical or educational environment? What do you do better than most people around you?
Why SMOG specifically? Why this reactivation moment? What about building this from the ground up speaks to you?
"We are not filling positions. We are choosing the people who will be there when SMOG changes everything — for African education, for African students, and for the next generation that will compete and lead globally."
That moment is now. There will not be another like it.
Apply for the founding team →Complete the form below. We review every application personally.