Senior Learning Designer (2026-0203)

The Information Communication and Technology Council (ICTC) is seeking a Senior Learning Designer to lead the design of evidence-based learning frameworks, curriculum architecture, and skills development initiatives that help translate complex research and technical requirements into practical learning pathways.

This role sits within ICTC's Program Design team and works closely with colleagues in Research and Policy, data science, program delivery, and external subject matter experts. The Senior Learning Designer will lead a major national initiative from discovery through skills and competency structuring to curriculum framework development, while also contributing learning design expertise to other ICTC initiatives as priorities and capacity allow.

The successful candidate will be working at the intersection of learning design, curriculum development, research, skills frameworks, and technology. They will be able to take large volumes of existing material, stakeholder input, and sometimes conflicting terminology and turn them into coherent, defensible, learner-centred structures. Success in this role requires strong methodological judgment, excellent facilitation skills, and the ability to move between strategic design and hands-on execution.

Key Responsibilities

Learning Design and Curriculum Framework Development

• Lead the end-to-end development of competency-based curriculum frameworks for technical and professional learning initiatives.
• Translate identified skills and capabilities into clear curriculum architecture, including foundational and domain-specific learning, prerequisites, progression pathways, proficiency expectations, and learning outcomes.
• Apply adult learning, competency-based education, backward design, constructive alignment, and related learning design principles to ensure frameworks are practical, coherent, and learner-centred.
• Define observable learning outcomes and appropriate evidence of learning, assessment approaches, and indicators of proficiency.
• Map existing courses, modules, and learning resources against curriculum frameworks to identify strong coverage, partial coverage, duplication, and genuine gaps.
• Develop learner pathways that support progression from foundational knowledge to applied, advanced, or specialist capability as appropriate.
• Ensure learning frameworks can support multiple delivery formats, learner audiences, and provider contexts without requiring unnecessary uniformity in delivery.

Skills, Competency, and Taxonomy Development

• Work with Research and Policy, data science, and subject matter experts to develop and maintain structured skills, competency, and training taxonomies.
• Extract, normalize, and organize skills, capabilities, topics, competencies, prerequisites, learning outcomes, and proficiency levels from multiple source materials.
• Develop and apply controlled vocabularies, aliases, definitions, classification rules, and cross-domain relationships that support consistent use of terminology.
• Identify overlaps, duplication, inconsistencies, gaps, and legitimate variations across source materials and stakeholder perspectives.
• Support the creation of metadata structures, mapping rules, and machine-readable outputs that enable taxonomies and frameworks to be used in digital platforms, databases, and learning systems.
• Maintain source traceability, decision records, version control, and governance documentation so frameworks remain transparent, defensible, and maintainable over time.

Discovery, Research, and Stakeholder Engagement

• Lead structured discovery across existing training materials, course inventories, competency frameworks, standards, policies, and related documentation.
• Plan and facilitate interviews, workshops, working sessions, and validation activities with subject matter experts, post-secondary institutions, research organizations, training providers, learners, and other stakeholders.
• Develop consultation guides and structured feedback tools that focus stakeholder input on clear decisions and deliverable requirements.
• Synthesize qualitative and documentary evidence into clear findings, design recommendations, and decision points.
• Facilitate resolution where stakeholders use conflicting terminology or hold different technical or pedagogical perspectives, drawing on evidence and clearly documenting the rationale for recommendations.
• Incorporate learner perspectives at appropriate stages to test clarity, usability, discoverability, prerequisites, and progression pathways.

Cross-Functional Integration and Evidence-to-Program Translation

• Act as a bridge between ICTC's research and program design functions, helping translate labour market intelligence, skills evidence, and research findings into practical learning and workforce development solutions.
• Collaborate closely with researchers, data scientists, program designers, facilitators, evaluators, and technology specialists to connect evidence, learning design, and implementation.
• Contribute learning design expertise to new program concepts, proposals, pilots, and capacity-building initiatives across ICTC.
• Help establish repeatable internal approaches for using ICTC's skills and labour market evidence to inform curriculum, training, and program design.
• Provide internal advice and quality assurance on learning architecture, curriculum coherence, assessment, and learner experience across priority initiatives.

Project Delivery and Client Engagement

• Lead assigned workstreams from planning through delivery, working within defined scope, timelines, milestones, and quality requirements.
• Maintain clear workplans, decision logs, consultation records, version histories, and other project documentation required for effective delivery and accountability.
• Work within a matrixed project environment with clear decision rights and close collaboration across Program Design, Research and Policy, and other internal teams.
• Communicate progress, risks, dependencies, and decisions clearly to project leadership and external clients or funders.
• Manage changing inputs and competing perspectives while protecting agreed deliverables, timelines, and quality standards.
• Prepare and present frameworks, recommendations, and project findings to technical and non-technical audiences.

Quality, Governance, and Continuous Improvement

• Establish clear methodological standards and quality assurance practices for learning frameworks and related deliverables.
• Ensure designs are grounded in evidence, validated by appropriate subject matter expertise, and usable by intended audiences.
• Document recommendations and decisions so that changes can be understood, reviewed, and maintained over time.
• Support governance and maintenance approaches for taxonomies, competency frameworks, and curriculum structures after initial development.
• Identify opportunities to improve ICTC's learning design methods, tools, templates, and cross-functional ways of working.

Travel and Flexibility

• Travel within Canada on an occasional basis to support workshops, stakeholder engagement, and project delivery.
• Demonstrate flexibility and readiness to contribute to related ICTC learning, skills, and program design initiatives as organizational priorities evolve.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Graduate degree in Education, Curriculum Studies, Instructional Design, Learning Sciences, Educational Technology, Adult Education, or a related field with demonstrated knowledge of contemporary pedagogy. An equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience may be considered.

Experience

• 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in educational research, learning design, curriculum development, competency-based education, instructional design, workforce development, digital pedagogy, or a related field.      
• Demonstrated experience developing curriculum frameworks, competency models, learning outcomes, proficiency models, learner pathways, or comparable learning architecture.
• Demonstrated experience developing or working with skills taxonomies, competency taxonomies, ontologies, controlled vocabularies, or other structured classification frameworks.
• Experience conducting discovery and synthesizing complex source material into structured, actionable frameworks.
• Experience facilitating consultations and validation sessions with subject matter experts and translating expert input into clear recommendations and deliverables.
• Experience mapping existing courses or learning resources against competency or curriculum frameworks and identifying gaps, overlaps, and duplication.
• Experience leading complex projects with defined client or funder deliverables, milestones, and timelines.
• Experience working in post-secondary education, research organizations, workforce development, technology training, professional services, or a consulting environment is considered an asset.
• Experience working with advanced research computing, research data management, research software, artificial intelligence, data science, or other technical learning domains is considered an asset.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong knowledge of adult learning and competency-based learning principles, with the ability to translate them into practical curriculum structures.
• Strong systems thinking and information-architecture skills, including the ability to see relationships across skills, topics, domains, prerequisites, and learning outcomes.
• Ability to synthesize complex and sometimes conflicting technical information without oversimplifying it.
• Strong qualitative research, facilitation, interviewing, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Strong project management and organizational discipline, including comfort working against fixed milestones and managing dependencies across teams.
• High level of digital and technical literacy and the confidence to work with subject matter experts in unfamiliar or rapidly evolving technology domains.
• Familiarity with learning management systems, digital learning platforms, structured metadata, or machine-readable curriculum and skills data is an asset.
• Excellent writing and communication skills, with the ability to explain complex frameworks clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborative working style and demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a matrixed, cross-functional environment.
• High integrity, sound judgment, attention to detail, and commitment to inclusive and accessible learning design.
• Bilingualism (English/French) is a strong asset.

Are you?

• A systems thinker - Can you take a large volume of complex information and see the relationships, patterns, dependencies, and structure needed to make it usable?
• A bridge-builder - Are you comfortable working across research, data, learning design, program delivery, and technical subject matter expertise to create a coherent end product?
• Learner-centred and evidence-driven - Can you balance sound pedagogy with technical accuracy, stakeholder evidence, and practical implementation needs?
• A skilled facilitator - Can you guide subject matter experts through complex discussions, surface areas of agreement and disagreement, and move groups toward clear decisions?
• Comfortable with complexity - Can you work productively when terminology, source material, and stakeholder perspectives do not initially align?
• A strong project owner - Do you take responsibility for milestones, dependencies, documentation, quality, and follow-through in a client-facing environment?
• Collaborative - Can you work with and through others, seek expertise where it sits, and keep multiple teams aligned around a shared outcome?
• Technically curious - Are you interested in emerging technologies and able to learn enough about unfamiliar domains to structure learning effectively without needing to be the deepest technical expert in the room?
  
  

Why Join Us?

• Be part of a dynamic, mission-driven, entrepreneurial organization committed to advancing Canada's competitive advantage in the digital economy.
• Lead high-impact programs that drive economic growth and shape the future of Canadian businesses.
• Work in an agile, collaborative, innovative, and forward-thinking environment where we are always helping each other achieve collective goals.  

Location

Remote (anywhere in Canada).

Additional notes:

• This role reflects growth in our team and expanded operational scope.
• ICTC is committed to being an equal opportunity employer. If you require accommodation measures during any phase of the hiring process, please notify us as soon as possible. All information received in relation to accommodation requests will be kept confidential.

About ICTC

ICTC is a neutral, not-for-profit national centre of expertise with the mission of strengthening Canada's digital advantage in the global economy. For over 30 years we have delivered forward-looking research, practical policy advice, and capacity-building solutions for individuals and businesses. Our goal is to ensure that technology is utilized to drive economic growth and innovation, and that Canada's workforce remains competitive on a global scale.

• OUR MISSION IS TO: Strengthen Canada's digital advantage in a global economy
• OUR VISION IS TO: Foster globally competitive Canadian industries and a prosperous society empowered by innovative digital solutions.

ICTC respectfully acknowledges that ICTC headquarters is on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People.