Lead Learning Designer

LearningMate is seeking a Lead Learning Designer in Cape Town, South Africa. This role involves overseeing a team of Learning Designers, ensuring high-quality learning experiences aligned with pedagogical principles. Responsibilities include collaborating with global partners, supporting course design projects, and fostering innovation in learning design. The position does not include direct people management but involves mentoring and supporting the team's professional development.
Title: Lead Learning Designer

Reports to: Senior Manager, Learning Design

Location: Cape Town (South Africa)

Summary of Job:

The Design team is responsible for the strategic design of high quality learning experiences. The team’s approach is grounded in empirical research on how people learn and leverages a creative design toolkit to analyze, evaluate, and create wholly new learning experiences for a global audience. Learning Designers work with university and enterprise partners around the world, as well as internal subject matter experts, to channel their expertise into courses and curricula.

Lead Learning Designers support teams of Learning Designers who specialize in learning science and pedagogy, user experience, instructional media design, collaborating one-on-one with faculty, enterprise clients and other subject matter experts around the world to create exceptional digital learning experiences. Lead Learning Designers are responsible for learning design quality and timeliness on the course or module level, ensuring that all learning experiences created by their team are aligned with sound pedagogical principles through mentorship, support, and ongoing quality assurance of the work output of the Learning Design team. Lead Learning Designers are responsible for ongoing research and innovation, and collaboration with other functional teams to ensure that the most up-to-date learning research and cutting-edge design techniques are being pursued and applied across the board. They divide their time between strategic initiatives focused on research and development, including leading cross-functional initiatives, and on contributing to course-level design projects.

The role is also critical in supporting the Senior Director in identifying training needs and skills gaps within the Learning Design team. Leads will support with, and in some cases lead, the execution of training opportunities as well as any other people management related aspects the Senior Director or business may deem necessary for the team. This role will be responsible for ensuring the ongoing quality output of the Learning Design team by ensuring they are researching industry trends and helping ensure the Learning Design team is at the forefront of learning science and technological advancements.

This role does not include people management responsibilities. Lead Learning Designers do not have direct reports.

Key Responsibilities:
• Support a team of individual contributors who liaise directly with university and enterprise partner faculty and subject matter experts. This may include facilitating vision setting workshops and design workshops with external collaborators, and working closely with these stakeholders to support the development of high-level designs, detailed design plans, module outlines, and media briefs.
• Develop tools, rubrics, processes, and other operational supports for the work of the full Design team, with a special focus on supporting the quality of work from the Learning Design team. This may include identifying revisions and improvements to new and existing course design and delivery based on partner or client feedback, research findings, and emerging technologies.
• Support the recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and ongoing professional development of learning designers across the whole team. This includes creating a psychologically safe space for the team and supporting DEI within the team.
• Contribute to strategic business initiatives aimed at improving the operational efficiency, learning design quality, or product innovation of the whole Design team.
• Effective cross-functional collaboration to ensure learning experiences are designed within scope/budget, leveraging automation, AI or other relevant technologies to reduce development time while ensuring high quality output. The role will support finding ways to reduce cost, timelines and drive other business objectives.

Education and Experience:
• University degree or commensurate professional experience required
• 5+ years prior professional experience in higher education management, curriculum design and management, or program and portfolio management within higher ed or other complex learning settings, and comparable people management experience
• Demonstrated functional excellence and evidence of support in recruitment and training initiatives
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to influence without authority
• High level of professionalism and confidence with evidence of strong negotiation skills as well as demonstrated cross-functional collaboration
• Excellent problem solving and lateral thinking skills, able to work under pressure and handle ambiguity
• Evidence of involvement in strategic business projects

Working Conditions

LearningMate is a fast-paced, dynamic work environment where change is embraced and employees who welcome teamwork and collaboration will thrive. At LearningMate, you are expected to be proactive and independent, while also being comfortable asking for support when needed. Continuous learning forms part of the daily rhythm at LearningMate and you will need to be receptive to providing and receiving regular feedback, and engaging in upskilling opportunities when they arise.

About LearningMate

LearningMate is a part of the Straive group and uses technology, digital media, large-scale data, and solutions to build strong, firm foundations in engineering and learning design. This approach helps close the gap between students, teachers, and content curators. The biggest publishers, universities, and government education departments worldwide use LearningMate's solutions to assist in developing, implementing, and streamlining their digital infrastructure. With more than 3,500 employees globally, LearningMate has established educational hubs in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and India