Senior Learning Designer

Reporting to the Senior Director of Learning Design, the Senior Learning Designer is a senior individual contributor who drives the learning design work within content initiatives from brief to launch. 

The Senior Learning Designer translates strategic direction into coherent design decisions, models craft for the team, and actively upskills other learning designers through feedback. They are a go-to expert in assessment design and instructional quality and a key partner in building scalable AI-assisted content workflows.

This role will be based in NY, NY at the BrainPOP HQ, or remote in the US (Eastern time zone strongly preferred). Occasional travel may be required.

Initiative Leadership

• Own the learning design work within assigned content initiatives—making and documenting key design decisions from brief through launch in partnership with the PM and Senior Director of Learning Design.
• Translate strategic direction into design frameworks, item blueprints, and content specs that the broader team can execute against.
• Maintain quality and coherence across a collection or initiative, catching inconsistencies in grade-band differentiation, cognitive demand, and instructional alignment.

Assessment Design & Item Writing

• Write and review formative assessment items at a level that models craft for the team.
• Set the distractor logic standard for an initiative; identify systemic quality gaps and address them through specs or direct feedback.
• Ensure grade-band differentiation is applied consistently across an initiative

Team Development & Upskilling

• Provide direct feedback on assessment items and learning design decisions, and model the design thinking rationale in a way that builds others’ judgment over time.
• Build shared resources when a quality gap reveals a systemic need: guidelines, worked examples, rubrics, or short workshops.

AI-Enabled Content Development

• Partner on AI content pipelines, contributing to prompt design, output evaluation frameworks, and quality rubrics for AI-generated content.
• Identify where AI tooling can improve initiative workflows and bring concrete proposals to the Senior Manager of Learning Design.

Product & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Represent learning design in product discovery and development within assigned initiative squads.
• Support on-time delivery by proactively flagging scope, quality, or resourcing risks to the Senior Manager of Learning Design.

• A design decision-maker: comfortable making and defending instructional design calls with clarity and rationale, not just executing direction.
• A craft model: the kind of writer and assessment designer others want to learn from; sets a visible standard.
• A developer of others: gets satisfaction from building team capacity, not just personal output.
• Analytically rigorous: can articulate what “good” looks like in reproducible terms and apply that standard consistently across a collection.
• A strong initiative partner: works fluidly with PMs, editorial, and product without needing constant direction.
• Digitally fluent: designs for interactive digital environments and is comfortable in CMS and AI-assisted content workflows.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s preferred in Education, Instructional Design, or Curriculum & Instruction.
• Assessment item writing: Strong portfolio of K–8 formative assessment items for digital learning products, with evidence of quality ownership across a collection.
• Curriculum design: 7+ years designing K–8 curriculum and learning experiences for edtech; deep knowledge of learning research and classroom application.
• MLL: Experience in K-8 instructional design and assessment development for multilingual learners for a technology-based product strongly preferred.
• Standards fluency: Deep knowledge of K–8 standards in at least one core subject area (Science or Math preferred); uses standards as design inputs. Demonstrated understanding of WIDA framework and standards, as well as national (i.e., NGSS, CCSS, etc.) and state-specific ELD standards (CA, TX, AZ) strongly preferred.
• Initiative or project leadership: Demonstrated experience leading the design work within a content initiative—making decisions, managing quality, and coordinating with cross-functional partners.
• AI content pipeline experience: Demonstrated experience with prompt design, output evaluation, or rubric design for AI-generated content. Systematic workflow experience required.

The BrainPOP team operates in a hybrid work environment: Each role has remote flexibility and an in-person component at our New York headquarters or other meeting locations. Based on the requirements of a specific role, we may prioritize hiring within a commutable distance of our New York headquarters or in another region relevant to that role.

We can employ individuals residing in the following approved hiring states. States not listed below may be considered based on factors including the needs of the specific role.

• Arizona
• California
• Connecticut
• Florida
• Georgia
• Illinois 
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• New Jersey
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Washington