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Salary: USD 113,000 - 113,000 / annual
Meritus College is a new not-for-profit online college designed for working adults and career-changers underserved by traditional higher education. The organization focuses on stackable credentials and real-world skills in high-demand fields, with an asynchronous, competency-based model that integrates workplace learning.
The Manager, Instruction and Program Design is a player-coach role combining hands-on instructional design with team leadership and program management. You will design and build online courses while leading a multidisciplinary team of program designers, technology coordinators, coaches, and learner support staff.
Key responsibilities include:
**Team Leadership & Program Management (40%):** Lead the instruction and learner support workplan within the college's integrated planning; facilitate weekly meetings and internal reviews; translate priorities into actionable plans; track commitments and unblock issues; represent the function in leadership syncs; support hiring and capacity planning as enrollment grows.
**Learning & Program Design (30%):** Design and build courses in the LMS, including structure, sequencing, activities, assessments, and learner-facing materials. Translate competencies and learning outcomes into instructional design for working adult learners in an online environment. Create and maintain course design standards, templates, and style guides. Design assessments and activities with attention to AI-enabled tools while protecting academic integrity. Ensure all courses meet accessibility requirements.
**Subject Matter Expert Partnership & Course Builds (20%):** Serve as primary partner to contract SMEs and adjunct faculty on new course builds; scope work and set expectations; manage timelines and dependencies; review content for instructional quality and outcome alignment; provide direct feedback.
**Quality & Continuous Improvement (10%):** Use feedback from course delivery (learner performance, coach observations, LMS data) to identify gaps and drive revisions. Maintain course documentation to accreditation standards. Proactively identify gaps in process, tooling, or ownership and build practical solutions.
This is a full-time, remote position reporting to the Director of Instruction and Learner Experience, with interim reporting to the Managing Director of Curriculum & Instruction.
**Requirements:**
- Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in higher education, counseling, or related field preferred
- 5+ years in instructional or learning design with a portfolio of personally built courses; experience designing for online, competency-based, or workforce-aligned programs serving working adults strongly preferred
- Experience managing people or leading a team, formally or as a project lead; readiness to carry a full management portfolio
- Experience partnering with subject matter experts, with judgment to draw out expertise, push back on learner-unfriendly approaches, and maintain relationships
- Strong technical fluency with learning management systems, authoring and media tools, AI-enabled instructional tools, and accessibility standards; comfort learning new tools quickly; judgment about when emerging technology strengthens a course versus when it compromises academic integrity
- Highly organized with strong project management instincts; ability to keep multiple course builds and team workstreams moving against firm term deadlines
- Comfort in a start-up environment, creating templates, standards, and processes from scratch while moving work forward
- Learner-centered judgment with instincts for where working adults and non-traditional learners struggle and drive to fix issues rather than document them
- Commitment to Merit America's mission to create pathways to family-sustaining careers and break the poverty cycle
- Demonstrated alignment with organizational values and commitment to inclusive excellence and closing gaps across lines of difference
