How To Become A Course Developer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a course developer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Education doesn't stop once a person graduates school. Many businesses and organizations offer courses and additional training to help employees level up their skills and keep up with a competitive, developing market. A course developer is the person who creates instructional programs and designs them in a way that is accessible to students.

The day-to-day tasks of a course developer may differ depending on the kind of organization they work for and its specific needs. They may work on pinpointing a skill that employees need training for, structuring a course for maximum effectiveness, and evaluating a course after it is completed to see how much students actually learned.

Many course developers have bachelor's degrees in business or a related field, and some go on to complete certificates specifically in course development to show their skills to potential employers. They need to know a lot about business needs and educational techniques in order to do their job effectively.

ScoreCourse DeveloperUS Average

Salary

7.2

Avg. Salary $92,160

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.5

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.51%

Asian 6.60%

Black or African American 11.28%

Hispanic or Latino 15.07%

Unknown 6.61%

White 59.93%

Gender

female 48.51%

male 51.49%

Age - 44

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 44

Stress level

5.5

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.0

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.0

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a course developer

Explore course developer education requirements

Most common course developer degrees

Bachelor's

60.7 %

Master's

20.8 %

Associate

9.8 %

Start to develop specific course developer skills

Skills	Percentages
Instructional Design	7.26%
Course Content	7.09%
Course Materials	6.29%
Training Materials	5.95%
Subject Matter Experts	5.77%

Complete relevant course developer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New course developers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a course developer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real course developer resumes.

Research course developer duties and responsibilities

Manage website content maintenance in WordPress CMS and produce copy that assist with SEO improvement.
Lead the virtualization of military training exercises and provide periods of instruction using virtual simulations.
Code course transcripts (XML).
Provide server-side PHP with MySQL DBA for numerous projects.

Prepare your course developer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your course developer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a course developer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable course developer resume templates

Build a professional course developer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your course developer resume.