Technical Assistance Manager, Future of Work & Innovation Economy Initiative

New America’s Future of Work & Innovation Economy (FOWIE) Initiative is seeking a Technical Assistance Manager to serve as the lead project manager for its Accelerator for Community Colleges in the Innovation Economy—a national technical assistance and community of practice initiative jointly launched with the U.S. National Science Foundation. The Accelerator supports community colleges in building their institutional capacity for STEM/emerging technology workforce development, as well as regional tech-based economic development partnerships. The Accelerator serves more than a dozen community college partners in the NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines–a historic federal program to support regional public-private teams in growing industries around emerging technologies– including the water economy, textile innovation, smart agriculture, regenerative medicine, clean energy capture and storage, chemical manufacturing, battery manufacturing, and beyond.

Technical assistance areas of focus on college initiatives to change institutional policies, practices, and infrastructure, ranging from improving partnerships with employers, non-profits, and universities; scaling apprenticeship and work-based learning opportunities; implementing online learning; enhancing and financing non-credit workforce offerings; improving colleges’ workforce data infrastructure; and fostering greater workforce partnerships with K-12 leaders, among other topics.

The Technical Assistance Manager will support FOWIE’s Managing Director and a team in designing and delivering technical assistance services by helping colleges define and pursue a capacity-building project; researching and curating relevant tools, models, and best practices; sharing insights with colleges through memos and presentations; in-person and online peer learning; and 1-1 technical assistance consultative support.

Responsibilities:

• Core Duties (85%): Technical Assistance & Community of Practice Management
  • 1-1 Technical Assistance: In coordination with the Managing Director and team, support Accelerator colleges in advancing a capacity-building technical assistance project by serving as a project consultant, researcher, and lessons learned/impact documentation lead–helping colleges define their goals, navigate New America resources, external resources, and networking with from colleges across the cohort and field.
  • Web workshops: Lead professionally designed monthly Zoom web workshops for Accelerator colleges. Tasks include designing compelling agendas; identifying and securing speakers and supporting their preparation; issuing pre- and post-workshop email communications, updating Google Drive folder with presentation slides, resources, and recordings; administering live Zoom polls and feedback surveys; fostering chat engagement among attendees; and managing live-event logistics, including breakout rooms, Slido polling, Zoom whiteboard, and screen sharing.
  • Data management & impact tracking: Lead and manage qualitative and quantitative data to measure and report on college engagement in cohort, capacity-building needs, and participation outcomes. Maintain contacts database.
  • Regional Summits: Coordinate 7-8 day-long Insight Summits nationwide, collaborating with colleges and the local NSF Engine to develop the end-to-end agenda and manage conference logistics. This includes preparing meeting materials, collecting slides, supporting speaker preparation, helping to facilitate the meeting, coordinating communication efforts, and distilling insights through written blogs, etc.
  • Annual summit @ NA: Organize an annual in-person summit for 30-40 attendees, leading on all logistics, hotel arrangements, agenda planning, and collaborations with New America’s central events team.
  • Affinity groups: Manage Accelerator’s peer learning discussion forum to promote networking and community-building among college leaders with shared goals (e.g., online learning, K-12 partnerships, work-based learning, systems coordination, etc.)
  • Capacity-building fund: Manage the operations of a capacity-building mini-grant program within the Accelerator that supports their capacity-building projects, including coordinating application development, proposal review, reporting.
  • Finance management: Coordinate the New America finance office to track and fulfill invoices for travel reimbursements, mini-grants for colleges, and project expenses.
• Secondary duties (15%): Communications Support & Blog Writing
  • Monthly newsletter: Draft and coordinate the Accelerator’s Monthly Update newsletter, including each month’s web workshop agenda, announcements, a round-up of blogs and articles, funding opportunities, and other strategic opportunities that benefit colleges.
  • Blogs & Presentations: Author and/or co-author blog articles detailing effective capacity-building best practices, lessons learned, and college impact profiles that support technical assistance objectives. As needed, give occasional virtual and in-person presentations regarding the Accelerator.
  • Communications: Support communications efforts relating to the project, including keeping on colleges' efforts in NSF Engines through Google Alerts and newsletters. Ensure colleges’ and Engines’ communications and presidents’ offices staff are informed when colleges/Engines are featured in New America or external writing, presentations, and events.

Qualifications: Candidates must be flexible, detail-oriented, and outcomes-driven technical assistance professionals who excel in collaborative team environments and can successfully guide complex projects to completion on a set timeline.

• Prior Experience with higher education leaders: Candidates must have 5-10 years of experience working in or with higher education institutions, ideally with senior college administrators and staff at community colleges, including presidents, vice-presidents, deans, department chairs, and program directors.
• Proven technical assistance skills. Candidates should understand the art and science of technical assistance and ideally have experience providing technical assistance to higher education institutions.
• Understanding of workforce development. Candidates must bring a foundational understanding of workforce development practices, ideally in STEM or emerging technology areas, including non-degree credentials, work-based learning, apprenticeships, and CTE programs. Experience in tech-based economic development is a plus.
• Strong project management skills. Candidates should have well-developed notetaking, time management, and task management skills (e.g., creating and using Gannt charts, workplans, and budget trackers) and above-average skills for using Zoom, Google Drive, and Google Workspaces (Google Slides, Sheets, Docs, Gmail), and Slack.
• Openness to feedback and a commitment to a growth mindset. Candidates should have honed strong interpersonal skills, including their ability to give and receive feedback, and the ability to patiently manage relationships with senior leaders at colleges. Candidates should bring a spirit of curiosity, an inclination to hubris, and a love for research and learning about technical assistance, change management, and workforce development.
• A bachelor’s degree in higher education administration, non-profit or project management, change management, design thinking, instructional design, or other relevant areas is required. A master’s degree is a plus, as are relevant project management certifications.

Compensation and Benefits: This position is a full-time role with benefits. The annual salary will be between $90,000.00 – $100,000.00, depending on experience.

New America offers a highly competitive benefits package that includes health care, dental, and vision coverage; a generous retirement plan; paid time off; observes all federal holidays; and an office-wide closure between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Location: Hybrid (Two days in-person at New America DC office); Remote candidates, preferably in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, may also be considered

Application Process:

Please submit 1) A current resume, 2) a 1 to 2-page cover letter addressed to the hiring manager, Shalin Jyotishi, that describes your experiences providing technical assistance, examples of past experience with workforce development, and prior work with higher education institutions.

Include 3 professional references, including the reference’s full name, title, email, and your relationship to them. At least one reference must be a former full-time supervisor. References will only be contacted at the final interview stage. Only completed applications will be reviewed.

Please, no phone calls or emails. Due to the volume of applications received, New America's policy is to only contact candidates selected for interviews. However, all candidates interviewed will be contacted via email regarding the status of their application. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and priority will be given to applications received by COB October 17, 2025.

Physical Requirements:

• This position is hybrid, working from home and in an office environment and sits at a desk for extended periods of time and requires dexterity to operate general office equipment;
• The person in this position will frequently communicate with peers, management, company partners/vendors, and the general public and must be able to exchange accurate and timely information verbally and in writing and
• This position may require walking, bending, kneeling, and standing and will require sitting for extended periods of time.

Work Environment:

• The work environment is in an indoor office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, and filing cabinets

Originality and Transparency: At New America, we value authentic voices and intellectual property rights. All application materials, including cover letters, writing samples, and any other submissions, must be solely your own original work. The use of AI text generation tools like ChatGPT, language models, or other artificial intelligence writing assistants is strictly prohibited for any part of your job application. Submissions found to contain AI-generated content will be immediately disqualified from consideration. Applicants have a responsibility to be fully transparent about authorship and any tools or resources utilized. We celebrate human ingenuity and want to hear your genuine thoughts and experiences

New America is an equal-opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization, thereby creating a culture that allows us to better serve our clientele, our employees, and our communities. We value and encourage the contributions of our employees and strive to create an environment where everyone can reach their full potential and drive outstanding results. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, age, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal law. This policy applies with regard to all aspects of one’s employment, including hiring, transfer, promotion, compensation, eligibility for benefits, and termination. This is a bargaining unit position.