Head of Assessment Research and Development

Head of Assessment Research — Principal Level

Psychometrics | Learning Sciences | AI-Driven Assessment

Location: Global Remote, with high-frequency collaboration with our China team

Employment Type: Full-time

About Walnut Education

Walnut Education is China’s leading children and youth educational technology company and an official UNESCO partner. Founded in 2017, we have grown to close to 10,000 team members and nearly 10 million learners globally.

We provide coding programmes in Scratch, Python, and C++ for learners aged 7 to 18, helping students build computational thinking, creativity, problem-solving skills, programming capability, and future-ready digital literacy.

Through advanced algorithms, rich learning data, and personalised learning pathways, Walnut Education is shaping the future of AI-powered education across China, the Middle East, and APAC.

Website: www.walnutedutech.com | www.hetao101.com

The Opportunity

Walnut Education is seeking a visionary Head of Assessment Research — Principal Level to design next-generation assessment systems for millions of learners across different learning stages, from young beginners building foundational computational thinking to advanced students developing programming, problem-solving, and AI literacy skills.

This role sits at the intersection of psychometrics, learning sciences, AI, data, and education technology. You will lead the development of competency models, assessment frameworks, scoring systems, and learner profiling tools that measure how learners think, solve problems, code, and grow.

You will work closely with our China-based product, AI, data science, curriculum, and research teams to turn academic research into scalable product impact.

What You Will Do

• Build competency frameworks for computational thinking, algorithmic thinking, creative problem-solving, programming capability, AI literacy, and human-AI collaboration skills.
• Design project-based, process-oriented, and standardised assessment systems for coding, STEM, and AI learning.
• Develop assessment tasks, rubrics, scoring standards, and validation systems covering reliability, validity, fairness, and evidence chains.
• Lead item bank development, learner profiling, and diagnostic reporting using methods such as IRT, CFA, MIRT, difficulty and discrimination analysis, and scoring consistency analysis.
• Partner with AI and Data Science teams to explore automated scoring, behavioural learning data, coding process data, and AI-assisted evaluation.
• Translate research findings into product specifications for learning reports, competency dashboards, and personalised learning recommendations.

Who We Are Looking For

• PhD in Educational Measurement, Psychometrics, Psychological Statistics, Learning Sciences, Educational Assessment, or a related field; or proven experience building complete assessment systems from scratch.
• Hands-on experience with IRT, CFA, MIRT, or related psychometric/statistical models.
• Strong ability to design end-to-end assessment research schemes, including frameworks, tasks, rubrics, scoring models, and statistical validation.
• Strong understanding of reliability, validity, fairness, item analysis, learner profiling, and assessment data interpretation.
• Ability to work independently as a research leader while collaborating with product, AI, data, and curriculum teams.

Browse our curated collection of remote jobs across all categories and industries, featuring positions from top companies worldwide.

• Ability to review global literature and engage international experts
• Advantageous: Experience in STEM/K-12 assessment, computational thinking, AI literacy, automated code evaluation, or AI-assisted scoring.
• Ability to speak Mandarin is a plus; not a must.
• Flexible to coordinate working hours with the China team, either in the morning or evening.

What We Offer

Access to authentic programming and learning process data from millions of active learners.

Opportunity to translate research into products used by learners, teachers, parents, and education partners at scale.

Support for academic publications, international conferences, and external research collaborations.

Global remote flexibility with close collaboration with our China-based team.

A rare opportunity to help define how AI-era learning, coding ability, computational thinking, and creativity should be measured.

To Apply

Please submit your CV and research portfolio via LinkedIn.

Only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

You can also send your resume with your portfolio to walnuteducation@hetao101.com