Product Leadership Internship (For graduates and final year students)

About Sparx Learning

Sparx Learning is a B Corp with a big mission: to improve lives and the world through learning. We build education technology that reimagines how children learn at home and in school, helping students, teachers and school leaders improve educational outcomes. We support more than 2.2 million students and 75,000 teachers across 2,600 schools, so the decisions we make have real impact.

Our culture is built around learning, innovation and respect, guided by our Sparx Standards: moving fast, taking ownership and elevating the people around us.

We’re proud to be a certified B-Corp - one of the few in UK education. For our team, it reflects the way we work: with purpose, integrity, and a strong focus on making a difference.

About the Product Leadership Internship

You’ve spent years learning. Now start building. This isn’t an internship where you watch from the sidelines.

Over 12 months, you will work on real problems affecting millions of learners, build practical product skills and contribute to live work from the start. Product will be your home throughout the year, while you build a deep understanding of how the rest of Sparx works.

You will start broad, go deep, then bring what you’ve learned back into Product. You will begin by seeing how teams across Sparx work, from education and content to AI, engineering, design and the teams working directly with schools, then spend longer periods embedded in selected teams, taking ownership of live work. Finally, you will work with our Discovery team on new innovations before returning to Product to take ownership of a meaningful piece of work.

For people who thrive during the programme, there may be an opportunity to continue into a permanent role at Sparx.

About the role/what you will be doing

The Product team at Sparx is responsible for understanding which problems matter most, deciding what we should build and why, and bringing different teams together to make it happen.

Our Product people work closely with Engineering, Design, Education, Data and other teams to understand users, make decisions, set priorities and turn ideas into products that improve learning.

At Sparx, product leadership isn’t about arriving with a senior title or managing a large team; it’s about judgement: understanding important problems, making good decisions, taking ownership and bringing people together to solve them.

Your year will look like this:

• Autumn Term - Immersion: You will spend a week with each of Engineering, Design, Insights, AI & Prototyping, Modelling, Content Design, Comms, School Success and Discovery, learning how each team works and how Product connects with them.
• Spring Term - Rotations: You will spend six weeks in each of School Success, Content Design and AI & Prototyping, taking ownership of real work on live projects.
• Summer Term - Application: You will spend six weeks in Discovery before returning to Product for your final two months, bringing together what you’ve learned and taking greater ownership of meaningful product problems.

Who are we looking for

We are looking for graduates and people graduating in 2027 who love learning, work at pace and feel a pull to solve problems that matter.

You don’t need a particular degree, previous product experience or coding experience. We care much more about how you think, learn and approach problems.

• Curiosity & initiative: You show energy and interest in learning new things and exploring ideas.
• High ownership, high pace: You take responsibility, move work forward and care deeply about quality.
• Action-orientated problem solver: You notice what's broken and feel a pull to fix it, not just talk about it.
• Comfort with ambiguity: You can act without perfect information and adapt quickly as new data emerges.
• Low ego, highly collaborative: You are reflective, respond well to feedback and draw on others’ expertise when needed.
• Thoughtful communicator: You ask great questions, listen well and create clarity from complexity.
• Multi-skilled: You bring a broad skillset shaped by interests, projects or experience beyond your core studies or role.
• Strong judgement: You make clear calls, prioritise well and challenge respectfully after understanding other perspectives.

How is this different?

• High-impact work, properly rewarded: This is not “nice-to-have” work. You will contribute to products used by millions of learners and be trusted with meaningful responsibility from the start. The £50,000 salary reflects that.
• Access to senior leaders: You will learn directly from senior leaders, including our CEO and founder, with regular access to feedback, challenge and support.
• Cutting-edge technology: You will work extensively with AI and emerging technology, using top-quality hardware and software to build better products.
• Small cohort, strong support: You will join a deliberately small cohort: enough peers to share the experience with, without getting lost in a large graduate scheme.
• Pace, variety and autonomy: Fewer layers, quicker decisions and real responsibility mean you will learn fast, experiment and build breadth across the business.
• Incredible office spaces: You will be based in our brilliant Exeter HQ throughout the programme, with future opportunities to work in one of our other UK offices.
• A clear role to aim for: For those who thrive at Sparx, there may be future opportunities to take the lead on a Sparx product and help shape the future of education.

Whether you build your career at Sparx or take your experience elsewhere in the future, you will leave with practical, transferable skills and evidence of the impact you can make.

Benefits that support you

We want people to enjoy life in and outside work. Our benefits include:

• 25 days’ annual leave, rising to 30 with service, with the option to buy five more days
• A generous personal development budget
• Private medical and dental insurance, life assurance, a virtual GP and employee assistance programme
• Company pension and enhanced family leave and pay
• Free, locally sourced organic meals when working from our Exeter office
• Sustainable travel benefits, including green travel incentives, an electric car lease scheme and Cycle to Work

A few things you might be wondering

• Do I need a STEM degree? No. We care much more about how you think and solve problems than what you studied.
• Is this a coding role? No. You will work closely with engineers, but the role is about understanding problems, making decisions and shaping what gets built.
• Do I need product experience? No. You will learn what product work looks like at Sparx, and we will help you build your product skills throughout the year.
• Do I need to know exactly what career I want? No. Wanting to find out is enough. The internship is designed to help you explore your strengths and build a clearer sense of where you want to go next.
• Can I apply if I require visa sponsorship? Unfortunately not. Sparx does not currently hold a sponsor licence, so we cannot progress applications that require visa sponsorship.

How to apply

We know applications take time, so we have kept the process simple and transparent.

• Stage 1: A short written application with a small number of questions. No CV or cover letter needed. If you answer no to any of the first 5 questions, we can’t progress your application.
  • You’ll see an “upload your resume” section. That’s a default part of our application system. Please don’t worry about it, we won’t use it as part of the assessment.
• Stage 2: A brief recorded video answering a couple of follow-up questions.
• Stage 3: A virtual screening call to learn more about each other and give you time to ask questions.
• Stage 4: An in-person assessment day at our Exeter office, where you will meet our CEO and a range of Sparx team members.

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