Manager, Design & Development

Job Description

The Manager, Design & Development leads a team responsible for defining the strategic foundation of courses that comprise new academic and professional programs as they enter full-scale development. Working in focused engagements, this manager and their team identify and resolve open design questions decisively and efficiently, so that production teams can move forward with clarity and momentum. The team's work is guided by forward-looking priorities and results in clear, actionable course-level design strategies and blueprints that downstream teams can build from without revisiting foundational decisions.

This role is well-suited to someone who solves complex design problems quickly and well, translates big-picture educational goals into practical direction, and excels at setting others up to do their best work. It combines deep expertise in learning design and assessment with strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration, and people leadership in the service of creating learning experiences that are innovative, equitable, and support student success.

Primary Responsibilities

• Oversees a team to prepare courses for in-depth design and development, defining strategies aligned with university priorities and compatible with emerging technologies.
• Leads and supervises team, ensuring high performance, engagement, and accountability.
• Ensures overall design deliverables meet quality, consistency, and alignment expectations of curriculum and assessments with program goals, design specifications, and best practices.
• Uses data-driven insights to identify trends, challenges, and opportunities for improvement in curriculum and assessment content; develops actionable strategies to address them.
• Models and mentors best practices in leveraging AI in curriculum and assessment design, fostering innovation and continuous improvement within the team.
• Manages the design process for assigned projects, ensuring adherence to timelines, budgets, and quality standards.
• Leads assessment design efforts, ensuring validity, relevance, technical accuracy, and alignment with program competencies and learning objectives.
• Plans staff assignments and determines the best approaches/methods for completing assigned projects.
• Collaborates with internal and external stakeholders to maintain alignment throughout the project.
• Analyzes stakeholder feedback and implements necessary improvements or changes to curriculum and assessment design.
• Builds and maintains cross-functional partnerships to support the development and maintenance of high-quality learning experiences.
• Manages risks and removes barriers to keep projects on track and aligned with institutional goals.
• Participates in the design of innovative and engaging instructional strategies and assessment methods.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.