Our Mission

Our mission is to rewire the U.S. labor market so STARs—workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes—can regain upward mobility, enriching their careers and communities. Over the next decade, we aim to enable this for 1 million STARs by opening up 10 million jobs, boosting STARs' earnings by more than $100 billion.

Our Vision

We envision a labor market where the skills you have matter more than where you got them. When skills are recognized and rewarded, all Americans can work, learn, and earn to their full potential.

Our History

Opportunity@Work was founded in 2015, in part to support and grow TechHire, a White House initiative launched by our co-founder Byron Auguste to connect overlooked communities with technology job openings. We were originally incubated as a “civic enterprise” within New America, a think tank dedicated to bringing new ideas and voices into America’s public discourse.

In 2017, Opportunity@Work became an independent 501(c)(3) with two ambitious goals: 1) Develop and test platforms to provide tech-enabled solutions to solve the opportunity gap; and 2) Rally public, private, and nonprofit partners to rewire the labor market so that everyone can contribute their skills, talent, and energy in pursuit of a better life.

Recognizing the learning needed to solve this problem at scale, Opportunity@Work has actively led several initiatives to expand access to career opportunities for overlooked individuals.

Miguel and Vadim, STARs

Our values

We are committed to the advancement of all people by proactively, equitably recognizing and valuing different experiences and backgrounds.

We celebrate the dignity of all work and the dignity of every working person, especially those with overlooked skills.

We nurture our team, partners, and those we serve to become stronger and more confident in decisions and actions to achieve our shared mission.

We pursue experience and experimentation so that each success, failure, and surprise continually leads us, and all who work with us, to more successful outcomes.

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We understand that work is more than a job and aspire for it to be rewarding, a source of happiness, and even fun.

Meet our team

We celebrate the dignity of all work and the dignity of every worker—especially those with overlooked skills.

Our people are passionate and driven, with experience, skills, and life journeys as unique as the STARs we serve. We’re looking for individuals who believe in building a labor market that’s more inclusive of STARs and want to stretch their professional skills in a collaborative, diverse, and dynamic environment.