[Hiring] Lead Instructional Designer @Nectar Inc

Role Description

The Lead ID is accountable for the quality of what leaves Alchemy on a project. You would oversee a small group of instructional designers across a set of concurrent courses, reviewing their work before it reaches the client and acting as the design authority when questions come up. This is a contract role scoped per project rather than per course, and it runs alongside the client's development calendar. It is a client-facing role where you are the person a client escalates a design question to, and the person who explains a design decision when it needs explaining. You will also be coaching contract designers who are often new to the client and sometimes joining a course that is already half built.

Qualifications

• Several years designing courses, including courses you took end to end yourself.
• Experience reviewing other designers' work and giving direct, actionable feedback without damaging the relationship.
• Confident judgement on outcome alignment, assessment design and scope, and the willingness to say that something is not ready.
• Experience with learning management systems, Canvas and Brightspace in particular, and with how design decisions survive or fail at the build stage.
• Comfort in client-facing meetings, including ones where you are delivering news the client does not want.
• The ability to hold several courses in your head at once and know which one is about to slip.
• A degree in education, instructional design, instructional technology or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Requirements

• Review each course plan, course guide batch and LMS build against the client's standards and our checklists before it is submitted, and sign off before it goes to the client.
• Give design feedback to the designers on your project, focusing on substantive calls.
• Confirm each course team has completed the review checklist before submission, and return work that is not ready.
• Act as the bridge to the build, reviewing the built course against the approved blueprint.
• Hold the line on accessibility and the client's design standards across every course on the project.
• Attend client calls for your project, presenting decisions and explaining trade-offs.
• Attend ID and SME calls as necessary, or as the project requires.
• Coach designers who are new to the project or to the client's standards.
• Onboard new contract designers to the client's templates, review process and standards.
• Work with the project manager on sequencing, risk and realistic dates.
• Keep your review status visible in the project system.

Benefits

• Contracted per project under a work for hire agreement, with a defined scope of courses and a defined period of performance.
• Paid at defined milestones against that scope. Not hourly, no timesheet.
• Expect a recurring weekly commitment rather than a burst of effort.
• The course list can change; material changes to the scope are handled as a contract amendment.
• You will work in our systems and the client's: Google Workspace, Slack, the project system, and the client's LMS.
• We use AI tooling in our process, including our own platform.
• We expect a reply to email and Slack within one business day.
• A late review blocks a build, which blocks a client date.

Nice to Have

• Experience leading contract or freelance designers rather than employees.
• Experience onboarding designers into a project that is already running.
• Experience with Articulate Storyline, Rise or H5P, enough to judge whether an interactive design is buildable.
• Quality Matters certification or similar.