What does a senior instructional designer do?
A senior instructional designer specializes in developing instructional and educational materials for a specific group of individuals, including children and adults. Their duties involve working together with the clients in identifying project needs and requirements, collaborating with experts, conducting research and assessments, utilizing theories and other studies in developing instructional materials, and subjecting the materials into different inspections to ensure quality and accuracy. Additionally, a senior instructional designer must utilize their expertise and experience by training and supervising junior designers while implementing policies and regulations.
Senior instructional designer responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior instructional designer resumes:
- Manage intranet sites, using Dreamweaver, for accessing e-Learning courses.
- Coach internal trainers on effective instructional design and PowerPoint presentation design.
- Have extensive experience communicating with SMEs to accurately capture and incorporate their expertise in course design.
- Edit and design images and graphics in Photoshop.
- Create web base training using Lectora and Camtasia authoring software.
- Design, develop, and create lessons for a web base instructional program for the FAA.
- Design, develop comprehensive training and process solutions using human performance methodology, best practices, and ADDIE methodology.
- Create product overview videos utilizing Camtasia.
- Coach and develop instructional designers on ADDIE model of instructional development.
- Implement the DoD policy against unauthorize disclosure or misuse of security standard documentation.
- Design monthly PowerPoint presentations for classroom curricula of varying technical and corporate subject matter.
- Gather student evaluation data from SharePoint and provide detailed course evaluation metrics to management.
- Work with remote internal SMEs to create performance-base e-learning courses covering insurance and registration and inventory management applications.
- Develop training curriculum base on consultative-sales model, using SharePoint for, project execution, team and content management.
- Provide strategic and day-to-day guidance for curriculum development (eLearning and instructor-le), facilitator development, organization and knowledge management.
Senior instructional designer skills and personality traits
We calculated that 9% of Senior Instructional Designers are proficient in Instructional Design, Subject Matter Experts, and Project Management. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Decision-making skills.
We break down the percentage of Senior Instructional Designers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Instructional Design, 9%
Developed well-received learning unit developers' resource SharePoint site, serving as centralized location for all instructional design tools and templates.
- Subject Matter Experts, 7%
Worked collaboratively with subject matter experts to effectively translate product launches, software updates and new processes into meaningful training materials.
- Project Management, 6%
Developed SharePoint-based project management site to facilitate transparency in work processes and create a central location for project documentation.
- Blended Learning, 5%
Conduct training needs analyses and blended learning curriculum for company-wide customers, including field, customer service and employee development operations.
- PowerPoint, 4%
Created MS PowerPoint presentation that highlighted Professional Services Department's accomplishments during eight consulting engagements.
- ELearning, 4%
Provided strategic and day-to-day guidance for curriculum development (eLearning and instructor-led), facilitator development, organization and knowledge management.
Most senior instructional designers use their skills in "instructional design," "subject matter experts," and "project management" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential senior instructional designer responsibilities here:
Analytical skills. The most essential soft skill for a senior instructional designer to carry out their responsibilities is analytical skills. This skill is important for the role because "instructional coordinators evaluate student test data and teaching strategies." Additionally, a senior instructional designer resume shows how their duties depend on analytical skills: "created analysis-based learning objectives and wrote content to meet business requirements. "
Communication skills. Many senior instructional designer duties rely on communication skills. "instructional coordinators need to clearly explain changes in the curriculum and teaching standards to school staff.," so a senior instructional designer will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways senior instructional designer responsibilities rely on communication skills: "created custom white-board style animated videos as communication vehicles for numerous hr campaigns. "
Decision-making skills. This is an important skill for senior instructional designers to perform their duties. For an example of how senior instructional designer responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "instructional coordinators must be decisive when recommending changes to curriculums, teaching methods, and textbooks." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a senior instructional designer: "determined learning objectives, developed creative treatment and designed course flow, scripted storyboards, and developed testing and evaluation plans. ".
Interpersonal skills. For certain senior instructional designer responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "interpersonal skills." The day-to-day duties of a senior instructional designer rely on this skill, as "instructional coordinators need to be able to establish and maintain positive working relationships with teachers, principals, and other administrators." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what senior instructional designers do: "demonstrate interpersonal, analytical, organizational, written and problem-solving skills specific to project management/online course development. "
Leadership skills. A commonly-found skill in senior instructional designer job descriptions, "leadership skills" is essential to what senior instructional designers do. Senior instructional designer responsibilities rely on this skill because "instructional coordinators serve as mentors to teachers." You can also see how senior instructional designer duties rely on leadership skills in this resume example: "design and manage instructional design projects for sales professional development, leadership training, and supervisory training. "
The three companies that hire the most senior instructional designers are:
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Compare different senior instructional designers
Senior instructional designer vs. Certified performance technologist
A curriculum developer is responsible for managing instructional materials, providing recommendations to the teachers, and making adjustments to the current student's curriculum to adhere to the highest educational standards and policies. Curriculum developers also facilitate and offer assistance for any implemented procedures. They also manage and address concerns regarding the learning standards and consider recommendations for curriculum improvement. A curriculum developer must have extensive knowledge of the education system to plan out the necessary teachers' training and coaching.
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a senior instructional designer are more likely to require skills like "instructional design," "project management," "blended learning," and "powerpoint." On the other hand, a job as a certified performance technologist requires skills like "linux," "safety glasses," "hvac," and "clean environment." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
On average, certified performance technologists reach lower levels of education than senior instructional designers. Certified performance technologists are 19.7% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 2.4% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Senior instructional designer vs. Lead performance support analyst
Each career also uses different skills, according to real senior instructional designer resumes. While senior instructional designer responsibilities can utilize skills like "instructional design," "subject matter experts," "project management," and "blended learning," lead performance support analysts use skills like "roi," "npv," "data integrity," and "state regulations."
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Lead performance support analysts tend to reach higher levels of education than senior instructional designers. In fact, they're 25.7% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 2.4% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior instructional designer vs. Curriculum developer
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a senior instructional designer is likely to be skilled in "learning solutions," "instructional content," "strong project management," and "adult learning theory," while a typical curriculum developer is skilled in "curriculum development," "java," "cloud computing," and "sql."
Curriculum developers earn the highest salary when working in the technology industry, where they receive an average salary of $65,147. Comparatively, senior instructional designers have the highest earning potential in the technology industry, with an average salary of $78,014.curriculum developers typically earn similar educational levels compared to senior instructional designers. Specifically, they're 2.6% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 1.5% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior instructional designer vs. Director, educational research and product strategy
Even though a few skill sets overlap between senior instructional designers and directors, educational research and product strategy, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a senior instructional designer might have more use for skills like "instructional design," "subject matter experts," "project management," and "blended learning." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of directors, educational research and product strategy require skills like "medical education," "educational programs," "market research," and "clinical trials. "
The average resume of directors, educational research and product strategy showed that they earn similar levels of education compared to senior instructional designers. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 0.0% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 7.4%.Types of senior instructional designer
Updated January 8, 2025
