software engineer

Ignite Reading

What is the best part of working at the company?
I love working with the students and that I get to choose my own schedule. The people that run the company are very friendly and helpful. The program really helps the students become successful readers. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
In the beginning it seemed stressful for me because I was not used to all of the technical aspects that were required, but I challenged myself to learn and now it is super easy and I absolutely love it! I don’t find any of it stressful. It was only stressful during the learning phase and during that phase you still have support as you also get to start teaching, that way all of the questions that come up, and you know that they do those first few weeks of teaching, you still have your support coach and your entire cohort to ask questions. Afterwards you still have what we call The Community Thread to chat with all of the Ignite teachers/tutors about anything that comes up that you need help with or any celebrations that you would like to share. It’s awesome. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment and culture is extremely positive at Ignite. The admin are always positive and also stress for us to remain that way with our students and those that are in the schools with the students. Being positive is an important part of Ignite Reading because we know that positivity is necessary for the wellbeing of our students, so that they can become successful readers. Also, we have our teacher community where we talk with each other about anything at all that comes up. We help each other through any challenges and celebrate each other’s wins. The admin also celebrate special wins that tutors have via our weekly email. I love that our culture is so positive. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day for me is start at 8:00, or your chosen time, the company asks you when you would like to work. You give them your availability. I choose all day with a lunch break of one hour so that my dog can get out for a walk and once a week I can join my parents for lunch as well. It’s nice to have these perks. I also schedule in a few 15 minute breaks for going to the restroom or a quick coffee break. I schedule my time to work until 6:00, because the students that are 3 hours behind,
I can still pick up at the later hours (since I’m EST). All of the slots do fill up with students which is great! You can work up to six hours per day. Choose carefully because you are committed to those students all year, as you should be, these kids count on us. I do not teach each student the same thing, so that is nice. They are on different levels and we are trained on exactly how to help them succeed. I love it!

I’ve seen where people talk about the lack of students and the instability there. Now, this frustration is valid given you make your own schedule and then you’re paired with students based on your availability-that can be tricky. But, for me, I’m a grad student still living at home, and I treat my job at ignite as a full time job, basically. My availability is open for most of the day, and I have allotted breaks for myself. Therefore, I have a solid full day’s worth of work instructing around 20 students per day. As an educator who is aiming to advance my career, the type of work I do at ignite is meaningful to my career journey and ambitions. In my position, I have certain accommodations that support me, one of which is having continual monthly meetings with my manager. However, if I didn’t have this accommodation, our team has made it easier and more accessible to have meetings with our managers — updates with communication processes have helped with this. Since beginning this position in 2023, I have witnessed the changes and evolution of the company from our curriculum, to our EdTech resources and tools, massive improvements to communication, and the ability to connect with coworkers. These changes had its up and downs and adjustment periods, as you would expect when things begin improving within a company, but these changes are unified in the mission of reading education and supporting us tutors to teach our students more efficiently. And, in terms of communication, our admin team has evolved to having more open communication and honest conversations about things that do work and don’t work for us tutors, such as EdTech systems or specific student issues. Overall, I am extremely happy in my position, and would love to advance in this role given my career is in education, and I truly believe in the heart of our work. The life of an educator can be stressful, but when it’s your calling and your passion, it truly makes it worth it, despite some of the burnout we educators experience. I would also add: if you haven’t or don’t foresee a career in education, this type of high dosage tutoring might not be the right fit as it is fast paced and, truthfully, requires a baseline understanding of educational methods and standards of instruction (DI, UbD, UDL, SEL, etc).

Like others have stated, the online environment is nice because of the "work-from-anywhere" option. But, if there are behavior issues with the students, there's little to no communication with the in-class teacher to get help. You, the online tutor, are expected to keep the student engaged and are only given "tools" to do so by email. Some of the classroom environments are extremely disruptive, and it makes it difficult to engage the students. Other classes are very structured and well run, with teacher engagement to keep the kids on task- which is what should be required for students to be taking these lessons on the computer. There is little support for behavior issues or students just choosing not to participate- it can be very frustrating. The pay is decent, but Ignite expects you to do a lot of work outside of hours, all the while saying you should be able to do it while you are in the classroom with the student, but it's impossible to do so. Any prep work is not paid for, and this is a major flaw with the company. I believe this could potentially be a great company, but there needs to be more accountability for the students on the other side of the screen. There also needs to be better outreach and communication when issues arise from management staff. Tutors also need to be compensated fairly for the work they put in. Otherwise, the good tutors will leave and Ignite will be stuck with tutors who don't do the needed work but are just in it for the pay. It can be very rewarding to see the growth of the students, and it's nice to a have a part-time online option for a tutoring job. 

When you are going through training, you are required to attend live sessions. You can only miss two live sessions before you are terminated and kicked out of the training. I do appreciate a select few of the administrative staff that did manage to help me because of my personal issues. However, every lead is different in their teaching approach from what I evaluated. Some really help you, while others just seem like you just can't really get any assistance with them. 

I learned more from the students than I learned from the protocols that was required. I was fortunate to see that these scripts that they make you abide by, should not be as complicated as it should be. Kids are simple, just like when it comes to seeing them grow into their own person. They go by statistics, which I personally do get, however, I also had this prenotion that children are no statistics, let alone, meant to be in a position to be a part of statistics. Proof shows and comes from the child alone. That is, it.  

Management was not the best. There is no way to contact anyone outside of email. They did do zoom calls; however, they were on a case-by-case basis. So, a few of the LDs, I did feel a connection with, while others, it felt like it was forced, and I had no other choice but to be in the sessions with the designated LD I was assigned too. The hardest part is the work you have to complete in order to continue working with students. Another issue is you are on your own if you have bad children AND if you have issues with something inside of your sessions. You will be directed right to support. The things that they have you learn can be simplified, instead, they chose to make it much more complex. I honestly don't understand how a child can really learn anything in 15 minutes. How do you know for certain that the information that child receives is retained? Only time can tell I assume. 

The most enjoyable part of the job is joining the session and seeing the smiling faces waiting for you or them coming in, excited to see you. 

As far as pay, I can care less, however, for the amount of work you have to do, you technically can only see the benefits of the pay of tutoring up to at least 25 students or more.

I love working with the kids and enjoy both reading and phonics as a whole. The company culture is one of encouragement and positivity which is a wonderful base. I found the paid training to be very informative and interesting. 

The content itself is pretty simple to teach, however, you are expected to fit a lot into a small time frame (they only allot 15 minutes per student and their goal is to have you complete a whole lesson in that time). I have often run out of time for various reasons including students showing up late or having tech issues, pacing, or trying to adapt to all the materials I have to work with. Also, all of the prep you do is expected to be done in the lessons that students don’t show up to and so you end up using a lot of your (unpaid) personal time to prep for your lessons. 

Support and the “higher-ups” are easy to contact but may take a long time to get back to you even if it’s important. Since student lessons are in 15-minute blocks, you may have students back-to-back which can cut from their lesson times and leave you feeling stressed having not been able to prep between lessons (I scheduled my lessons with breaks in between for this reason). But since 4 students = 1 paid hour, it can be difficult to reach your financial goals between how much time is in your day, student availability, and school hours. Ignite does NOT run over the summer (they only work with schools as of right now) so you will need another job to cover the time that Ignite is not in session. 

Overall, if you can work 4-8 students in your schedule with another job, that’s great money on the side. I do like the potential of this company, but they still have some kinks to work out. All of the kids I had have been pretty great to work with and they are most definitely the best part of the day.

I decided to tutor here because I enjoy teaching and wanted to help students succeed. The training was great albeit strict. I liked to see my students and that we had scripts and training but there Ignite has many cons in comparison to other teaching companies. I want to give my honest review so other teachers know what to be aware of before applying here.
Cons: 
-A lot of training and not enough focus on guiding students of different levels (ELL/Special Ed)
-You need to have the same schedule 5 days a week, 15-minute periods.
-You need to have lots of windows open during your lessons 3+ and read scripts exactly (Cannot even say "How are you?" to students anymore.
-You are alone with little to no support with difficult kids and you cannot drop students without talking to support first (this can take a week to process)
-The support team is not often helpful
-You can't take time off or it is used against you (even for medically required surgeries and recovery). I feel this goes against their supposed standards of being open to everyone of all race/ethnicity/disability.
-You are rated and reviewed by how fast your students learn which is hard if students are ESL and Special Ed since not all kids will learn at the same pace.
-There is no overall reward system and all of the lessons are boring in black and white. This is a big reason why I believe there are so many disciplinary issues with the kids. I had to create my own reward systems which I would have to make during unpaid time. Students have trouble being engaged with the material since it is repeated.
-If students do not pass a level test they have to repeat the exact same lessons sometimes 3+ time
-You have to find and download lessons and delete them into the GoSchoolBox Lesson space every time you start a new level. You have to do this while you're currently in sessions with a student who passes a level. The platform can be unorganized looking.
-There were many changes throughout this year to scripts and lessons which required you to delete and upload new materials and it was at last-minute notice.
-When you sub for other teachers their platforms are unorganized 

The folks at Ignite are great and you can tell that they care, but my year here was pretty frustrating. They give you students in 15 minute slots, which left me with weird 15 minute unpaid gaps that I could not fill with other work. This left my hourly pay at $15/hr, which is not great.
Also, the lessons can feel really rote and boring for an online platform, especially if a student gets stuck. If a student gets stuck on a certain protocal, you're just supposed to repeat it over and over, and the extra material don't target the places that the students really struggle in. This was the case for a student of mine for many months - he never did see any improvement.
There are also no books or stories at lower levels to liven things up and create meaning for students, and students struggle to connect the lessons to anything they actually care about. Older students who have fallen behind are already dismayed and lack motivation, and this program that only provides phonics without fun does not help. My students who were successful already had a caring and supportive reading environment outside of tutoring, and those who did not struggled bitterly to find things interesting. 
Overall, there is too much focus on scripts and performance metrics like completing one lesson every day, which does not give tutors the ability to adjust lessons to their students strengths and challenges and takes the tutors focus away from the student they are teaching. Attention is energy, attention and focus conveys care and importance to the student. If the tutor is focused on scripts and metrics, attention to the student is restrained and limited in a way that is ultimately detrimental to forming the abilities of the young person. Rather than coming away empowered, students are subjected to a one-size-fits all approach that often does more harm than good. I would not recommend this program for exceptional learners or those who seek to support them.

A typical day at work involves one-on-one with students from kindergarten to grade 8 for 15-minute sessions to teach them how to read. You read and follow a script and set of slides to help them through the protocols they need to progress in reading.
I have learned how to teach a child how to read. I have even learned techniques for reading multisyllabic words that I didn't learn in school. I have used what I have learned to help my son and my husband when they have to read in front of others.
The management is good compared to other places. Honestly, I rarely deal with them, because I never feel a need to deal with them. They provide guidance through email when necessary.
The workplace culture is one of encouragement. They do have a set of standards they need you to meet, but once a month they let you know where you stand, and the resources you need to work on and provide direct guidance when necessary so that you can continue to achieve those standards and progress.
Honestly, the hardest part of the job is consistent hours. Your hours depend on how many students you get paired with and whether or not they will be there. There is a three-day last-minute session rule where you still get paid. But if they have days off set ahead of time, that is 15 minutes you don't get paid for. Also, you cannot work more than 6 hours a day, Monday through Friday.
The most enjoyable part of my job is the kids. I work with mostly first graders, with a couple of third and fourth graders. They can be such a joy to work with and make the job even easier than it already is.

A typical day is highly structured with no flexibility. PTO is available but comes with penalties—every hour requires 30 worked hours, and taking time off, even with PTO, lowers your attendance rate, which can lead to resignation. There is no room for sick days, emergencies, or family matters without consequences.

Management is inconsistent, and expectations constantly change. If a child misbehaves, the tutor is blamed, and rather than addressing behavior issues, feedback focuses on what the tutor should have done differently.

The advertised pay is misleading—it’s $5 per session, not $21/hour, and if no session is assigned, there is no pay. This creates an unstable income. Despite student success, tutors receive little to no recognition, only constant scrutiny.

While working with children is rewarding, the company culture makes it difficult to stay long-term. The stress and lack of flexibility outweigh the benefits.

The mission is great. The idea is stellar. The execution, however, leaves a lot to be desired. 

There is no real support when you have a problem with a student and there is no option for a tutor to drop a student if it truly isn't working. There's no one making sure that the students show up for the sessions and no help keeping them in their seats or getting them to participate if the classroom teacher isn't engaged. You just get told to try the already established "aides" from support and they make you feel like YOU aren't trying hard enough no matter what you do.

Scheduling the sessions is another problem. They're supposed to be 15 minute blocks but you end up getting them scheduled so tight that you can't take a bathroom break or get a drink without losing a student block. You also don't have paid time to do prep and are told to prep when a student doesn't show. It just doesn't work out well.

When the students are willing to participate, it can be great and sometimes a lot of fun. If the students aren't willing to participate, there's nothing you can do. This can be a very boring, repetitive and stressful job.

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