[Hiring] Instructional Designer @iDesign

Role Description

This position is not open to applicants residing in or otherwise based in California, New York, Illinois, or Massachusetts. Additionally, applicants must be located in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, or Pacific time zones.

We’re looking for professionals who take pride in their work. We know your resume tells part of the story, but our application questions help us understand how you think and work. Because we receive a high volume of applications, only applications with complete, thoughtful responses will be reviewed.

Given the AI restriction on this engagement, we ask that your responses be your own work.

This is instructional design work, with a twist. Every project starts with an existing course and a charter that defines exactly what is changing about it. The work involves:

• Reading the charter closely.
• Translating it into specific revisions in specific places.
• Executing them cleanly on a short, fixed cycle.
• Maintaining focus on the charter without drifting into unrelated course parts.

You will work with Subject Matter Experts and coordinate with internal teams, ensuring every revision adheres to research-based practice and partner-defined quality standards. This engagement carries a partner data restriction; no partner course content, materials, or partner-provided information may be entered into, uploaded to, or processed by any AI system during the engagement.

This is an independent contractor engagement (1099). Contractors are free to work with other clients, and accepting one project carries no obligation to accept another. Meeting times are set in advance around each project’s milestones. Outside of those scheduled meetings and agreed deadlines, you determine your own working hours and process for completing the work.

Scope of Work

• Complete a scoped review of the assigned course and map the charter to specific course locations, documenting cascading effects, assumptions, and ambiguities before development begins.
• Deliver a specific list of items requiring SME input before the first working session.
• Collaborate with SMEs to revise instruction and assessments in scope, aligned to learning outcomes and the charter, while documenting anything outside scope rather than addressing it.
• Suggest relevant open educational resources and instructional methods appropriate to the revision.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation of design decisions to support partner review and approval.
• Incorporate partner and stakeholder feedback through agreed revision cycles.
• Facilitate SME working sessions to obtain the approvals required to complete deliverables.
• Coordinate with internal teams at defined handoff points to ensure deliverables are completed on schedule.
• Complete self-QA before each handoff and deliver complete, accurate work by each fixed milestone.
• Submit a status update with each milestone deliverable, and flag anything that's off track as soon as you identify it.
• Work from the version of the design standards and charter in effect for your project.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Education, Instructional Technology, or a related field.
• Current, in-depth knowledge of instructional design and learning theories.
• Demonstrated experience (3-5 years) collaborating with SMEs on online course development in higher education or corporate environments.
• Proven ability to build strong working relationships with SMEs while moving projects forward and meeting deadlines.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Ability to read a scope document and identify not just what it says, but what it means in practice.
• Strong independent judgment.
• Experience with ADA compliance and quality standards for course design.
• Competency navigating various LMS systems such as Brightspace, D2L, Canvas, Moodle, etc.
• Ability to recognize AI-generated material in SME submissions and evaluate it critically.
• Strong organizational skills, excellent follow-through, and exceptional attention to detail.

Requirements

• Trust that addressing what’s in scope serves the student better than expanding into what isn’t.
• Naturally front-load your prep, arriving at meetings with a plan.
• Can hold a professional boundary on scope with a SME without straining the relationship.
• Comfortable working without AI assistance on partner content.
• Deliver complete, accurate work on a hard deadline, consistently.
• Communicate proactively, especially when something is going wrong.
• Pick up a revised standard between projects and apply it accurately.

Benefits

• A proven track record of working with academic and business partners to create engaging and effective online courses.
• Excellent oral/written communication and presentation skills.
• Background in Learner Experience Design.
• Expertise in competency-based learning.
• Comprehensive knowledge of available open educational resources (OERs).
• Quality assurance training and certification (QM, OSCQR, other).
• Post-secondary teaching and learning experience.

Company Description

iDesign is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building an inclusive environment in which everyone is a valued member. At iDesign, all hiring decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications. We seek applicants of diverse backgrounds and hire without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by law.

To help us get to know you beyond your resume, please answer the application questions fully. Incomplete responses will not be reviewed.