Instructional Design Lead

The Instructional Design Lead is a hands-on people leader responsible for guiding a small team of Instructional Designers in the creation of high-quality, outcome-driven learning experiences for internal and customer-facing audiences. This role combines deep instructional design expertise with strong leadership, communication, quality assurance, and coaching skills to elevate the capability, consistency, and professionalism of the centralized Learning & Development team.

The Instructional Design Lead is accountable for strengthening instructional design standards, improving content quality, developing team capability, and ensuring learning solutions are aligned to business needs, learner outcomes, and adult learning principles. This leader partners closely with L&D program leaders, facilitators, Product Enablement, Operations, and other cross-functional stakeholders to translate complex needs into clear, engaging, scalable learning solutions.

Work location & model: Richardson, TX, on-site, 5 days per week

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Management

• Supervise, coach, and develop a small team of Instructional Designers, setting clear expectations for quality, timeliness, collaboration, and professional standards.
• Provide consistent mentoring, feedback, and skill-building support to grow the team’s instructional design capability, attention to detail, and ownership of quality.
• Model strong people leadership, emotional intelligence, professional communication, accountability, and constructive problem solving.
• Manage team workload, project assignments, priorities, and capacity across multiple learning initiatives while ensuring quality is not sacrificed for speed.
• Create a culture of design excellence, curiosity, innovation, collaboration, continuous improvement, and thoughtful execution.

Instructional Design Strategy & Learning Outcomes

• Lead the design of learning experiences that are grounded in clear learning outcomes, adult learning principles, learner needs, and business objectives.
• Establish and reinforce instructional design standards, development workflows, quality criteria, templates, and review checkpoints for the centralized L&D team.
• Translate complex business processes, role expectations, system workflows, and stakeholder needs into structured, engaging, and scalable learning solutions.
• Guide the team in selecting the right learning modality, including eLearning, instructor-led training, blended learning, performance support, video, simulations, and job aids.
• Ensure learning solutions move beyond task completion and are intentionally designed to build knowledge, confidence, behavior change, and measurable performance outcomes.

Content Governance & Quality Assurance

• Conduct detailed quality reviews of instructional design deliverables, including eLearning modules, facilitator guides, participant materials, videos, graphics, assessments, job aids, and ILT/VILT course materials.
• Provide constructive, specific, and actionable feedback that improves the work product while developing the designer’s judgment, design skill, and attention to detail.
• Develop and maintain content standards, templates, visual design expectations, accessibility expectations, and review protocols for all L&D training materials.
• Ensure learning materials are accurate, polished, learner-centered, instructionally sound, and ready for professional delivery to internal or client-facing audiences.
• Lead periodic reviews of the content library to improve consistency, relevance, usability, and alignment to current business processes.

Learning Analytics & Outcomes Evaluation

• Partner with L&D leaders and stakeholders to define measurable learning outcomes, success criteria, and evaluation approaches for training programs.
• Embed appropriate assessments, knowledge checks, practice activities, feedback loops, and performance indicators into instructional design deliverables.
• Use learner feedback, facilitator observations, performance data, and stakeholder input to identify content improvements and strengthen learning effectiveness.
• Translate evaluation insights into practical recommendations that improve content quality, learner engagement, and business impact.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Alignment

• Partner professionally with L&D program leaders, facilitators, Product Enablement, Operations, Implementation, Client Experience, Support, and other stakeholders to clarify needs, align priorities, and plan learning solutions.
• Represent the instructional design function in meetings, demos, project planning sessions, and stakeholder discussions with confidence, clarity, and credibility.
• Ask effective discovery questions, synthesize input, identify learning implications, and recommend appropriate design approaches.
• Serve as an advocate for learner needs, usability, instructional quality, and practical application in cross-functional discussions

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required — Education, Instructional Design, Learning Sciences, Organizational Development, Educational Technology, or related field.
• Master’s degree preferred in Instructional Design, Learning Experience Design, Adult Learning, Organizational Development, or Learning Technologies.
• Professional certifications (preferred):
  • ATD CPTD or APTD
  • Instructional design, learning experience design, or adult learning certification
  • Advanced eLearning authoring, video development, graphic design, accessibility, or facilitation design credentials preferred

Experience

• 5+ years of progressive instructional design, learning experience design, curriculum development, or related L&D experience.
• Demonstrated experience supervising, leading, mentoring, or coaching Instructional Designers or comparable learning roles.
• Advanced hands-on experience with instructional design tools and methods, including eLearning authoring tools (Articulate—Rise & Storyline), video development, graphic design, instructor-led training design, facilitator guides, simulations, assessments, and job aids.
• Deep knowledge of adult learning theory, learning science, curriculum architecture, learning outcomes, assessment design, and blended learning methodologies.
• Proven ability to review complex learning deliverables, identify quality gaps, and provide clear, constructive feedback that improves both the work product and the designer’s capability.
• Strong professional presence with the ability to present recommendations, facilitate design conversations, influence stakeholders, and represent L&D with credibility.
• Demonstrated success designing scalable training programs in a SaaS, technology, product, operations, or process-transformation environment preferred.