Piano lead - Full-time, on location in Los Angeles
Description
Job title: Piano lead - Full-time, on location in Los Angeles
Application period ends: October 10, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT.
Planned start date: December 1, 2025
I’m Sam Blakelock, co-founder at Pickup Music and I’ll be hiring for this role.
We don’t hire often, so this is a rare opportunity where you’ll be coming in early to help shape piano education at Pickup Music, both in front of and behind the camera.
About us
Pickup Music is a leading music-education company based in Los Angeles that has been growing steadily since 2016. We are the leaders in structured, long form learning with over 25,000 members for guitar, bass and soon piano. We are an independent, bootstrapped company led by musicians.
About the job
We are looking for a pianist to lead the development of piano lessons, and become the leader of our piano community once it’s launched. This role involves a mix of preparing and teaching lessons on camera, producing other teachers to create lessons, and managing our community of piano learners.
Where is it based?
This is a full time role based in North East Los Angeles. The hours are normal working hours - Monday to Friday. You’ll be in the studio at least 80% of the time but some of your pre and post production work can be done at home.
What’s the pay?
We normally include salary for jobs but we aren’t listing a salary for this one as we are open to applications of all experience levels. If you’re the world’s best educator with a strong online presence and an existing audience of paid students, we’re happy to talk. If you’re a recent college grad who’s an exceptional player and are looking for an exciting career in education and content, we’d love to talk. If you’re a college professor looking to work in a new work environment, we’d love to talk.
We offer a 401K 4% match, healthcare, 20 days paid leave, sick leave, and parental leave.
What’s the work look like?
At Pickup Music, we respect and allow time for our team members to shut out the noise, and focus on their deep, meaningful work. For you, this deep work will be primarily writing, producing and filming the world’s best piano curriculum.
Here’s what your first 30 days will look like:
- Week 1: onboarding, where you can meet the team, learn our product and plan your first class with me.
- Week 2: teach a course, with me producing you, so you can see what it’s like to do a class end-to-end.
- Week 3: start work on our core piano curriculum.
Day to day, you’ll be working with our LA production team closely. As well as being on camera, you will direct and produce talent and see classes through to publish.
We don’t expect you to hit the ground running. I’ll be coaching you through how to produce a class at Pickup Music. You’ll learn from our other instrument leads and we’ll iterate quickly from user feedback. We learn by getting our work out there with users, and improving it in the next class.
Not based in Los Angeles? We’ll cover your relocation costs to relocate to LA from within the US.
Not in the US? Unfortunately this job is only available for people legally able to work in the US. We are not sponsoring visas for this role, and it is not a remote job.
How to apply
This application has three parts:
1. Cover letter and CV. A big part of this role is writing curriculum and scripts so your cover letter should be in your own words. I encourage you to write specifically about why you would like this role and your vision for piano education at Pickup Music and how we can get there. Keep it short and sharp and say what matters most to you. We don’t use AI to look at our applications and will prioritize applications written by humans.
2. A video of you teaching. This role will have you on camera teaching so this is the most important part which I will watch first. I’d encourage you not to overthink it, or to make it too polished. Instead, pick any beginner topic - for example, how to play the C major scale, and teach it to a student (not me), in around 5 minutes. It can be filmed with your phone.
3. Links to your playing piano. Please share links to some clips so I can hear you play
The interview process will follow these steps:
- We are posting this job on Friday, September 19, and closing off applications on October 10, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT. Applications after this time will be considered, while the position is still open. There is no advantage to submitting your application before October 10, 2025.
- We will take around 1 week to review all applications then email you if you have been selected for a round 1 interview.
- If you get selected for an interview, there will be three interviews and one paid assignment. You’ll pass each step sequentially, and we will email you about each one if you progress to the next stage:
- Interview 1. 25 min call with me to ask me any questions and for me to get to know you.
- Interview 2. A second longer interview.
- One day paid project in LA
- We’ll work on a real project together for the day. You’ll be paid $750 for the day.
- If you are not based in LA, in addition to paying you, we will cover your travel to LA from within the US and 2 nights accommodation.
- Final interview. For the final candidates, you’ll do longer interviews with me, my co-founder and our Head of Education.
- Job offer and reference checks. We’ll ask for five references to call including 3 people who have directly managed you, 1 person you have managed, and 1 co-worker.
- We aim to make a decision for this role by Monday, November 10.
- The job’s start date is December 1, 2025 after Thanksgiving. We are underway with piano production so we’d prefer for you to be involved right from the start.
We know this is a lot of work so we appreciate the time you’ve taken to consider this role. We look at every application and consider everyone who applies.
Can I keep performing, teaching or selling my own courses?
This is a full-time role, so we expect your main creative energy and focus to be with us. That said, playing occasional shows or producing music on the weekends or during your leave is fine as long as it doesn’t interfere with your responsibilities or creative focus with us. If you have existing courses that you are selling, we are happy for you to keep them live, but we’d ask you not to actively promote them whilst you’re on the team.
Requirements
You’re the right person for the job if you fit the following three requirements:
- You’re a professional pianist. You can sight-read, improvise fluently, play multiple styles and you have extensive performing experience. We have a preference for jazz pianists over classical pianists.
- You’re passionate about creating video lessons to teach beginner to intermediate students.
- You’re excited to work with a fast-growing music technology company to build something special that helps tens of thousands of people learn music.
How to apply
Apply directly through Pickup Music's Gusto Job board: https://jobs.gusto.com/boards/pickup-music-2e915fe1-5584-4df7-a6cd-83852d89e5aa
Pickup Music
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Pickup Music is a leading music-education company based in Los Angeles that has been growing steadily since 2016. We are the leaders in structured, long form learning with over 25,000 members for guitar, bass and soon piano. We are an independent, bootstrapped company led by musicians.