Vice President, Curriculum Design & Development

Department: Curriculum Solutions Position Title: Vice President, Product Design & Development Reports To: Executive Vice President, Curriculum Solutions Employment Status: Full-Time, Exempt Modality: Remote; must comply with Per Scholas’ office and remote-work policies Travel: 0–10%, as needed and with prior approval

Who We Are Looking For

Per Scholas is seeking a strategic, innovative and outcomes-oriented Vice President of Product Design & Development to lead the design and development of high-quality, market-responsive curriculum products. This leader will oversee the full product-design lifecycle—from discovery and requirements definition through curriculum design, development, quality assurance and launch readiness.

The Vice President will ensure that Per Scholas’ curriculum portfolio responds to labor-market intelligence, employer demand, learner needs and emerging industry trends. This individual will lead a multidisciplinary team that may include product managers, product owners, learning-experience designers, curriculum developers, technical subject-matter experts and contractors.

The ideal candidate is an experienced product and curriculum leader who understands technical training, workforce development and adult learning. This person must be able to translate organizational strategy into clear roadmaps, measurable product outcomes and scalable learning experiences that support job placement, credential attainment and economic mobility.

What You’ll Do

Product Strategy and Portfolio Leadership

• Lead the strategy, design and development of Per Scholas’ curriculum portfolio across technology, infrastructure, professional development and Career Accelerator offerings.
• Translate organizational priorities, employer demand and labor-market intelligence into actionable product roadmaps and investment recommendations.
• Establish clear portfolio priorities across new course development, customization, refresh, redesign, scaling, deferral and retirement.
• Present data-informed recommendations, risks and tradeoffs to executive leadership and governance bodies.
• Ensure product decisions are grounded in employer relevance, learner outcomes, organizational capacity and financial sustainability.
• Establish clear success measures for curriculum quality, development speed, credential attainment, learner completion and placement relevance.

Curriculum Discovery, Design and Development

• Provide executive leadership for the end-to-end discovery, design and development process.
• Ensure that new and refreshed products are informed by learner personas, job-task analyses, competency maps, employer requirements and relevant industry certifications.
• Oversee the development of course outlines, sequencing documents, learning objectives, assessments, labs, instructor resources and learner-facing materials.
• Ensure technical requirements are translated into clear, measurable and instructionally sound learning experiences.
• Establish consistent definitions of design readiness, development readiness, quality assurance and launch readiness.
• Ensure products incorporate appropriate applications of artificial intelligence, security, human skills and emerging technologies.
• Promote responsible, ethical and employer-aligned uses of AI within curriculum and technical learning experiences.
• Balance customization requirements with the need to maintain scalable, repeatable and sustainable curriculum products.

Team and Talent Leadership

• Lead, coach and develop a multidisciplinary Product Design and Development team.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, performance expectations and decision-making authority across the team.
• Build a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability, psychological safety and continuous improvement.
• Assess team capacity and align internal staff, contractors and subject-matter experts with portfolio priorities.
• Develop internal talent pipelines and strengthen the team’s capabilities in product management, learning design, technical curriculum development and quality assurance.
• Ensure team members receive appropriate professional development, tools and support.
• Manage performance, succession planning, staffing recommendations and resource allocation for the department.

Quality, Standards and Governance

• Establish and uphold curriculum-product standards for quality, consistency, accessibility, assessment rigor, credential alignment and employer relevance.
• Ensure learning objectives, instructional activities, labs and assessments are aligned and traceable to job competencies.
• Develop and monitor quality gates that reduce rework and protect the integrity of curriculum products.
• Ensure curriculum changes follow established governance, version-control and pilot-evaluation processes.
• Maintain clear standards for when courses should be refreshed, redesigned, scaled, deferred or retired.
• Partner with Evaluation and Learning teams to incorporate pilot findings, learner-performance data, instructor feedback and placement outcomes into product decisions.
• Protect appropriate curriculum-development timelines and ensure that significant changes are supported by evidence, capacity and organizational priorities.

Cross-Functional Leadership and Launch Readiness

• Partner with Training Delivery, Product Delivery, Instructor Development, Evaluation, Professional Development, Employer Engagement, Marketing and Operations to ensure successful product implementation.
• Ensure curriculum-design decisions reflect instructor readiness, scheduling requirements, learner-support needs, technology constraints and market capacity.
• Establish effective handoffs between discovery, design, development, quality assurance and implementation.
• Provide stakeholders with accurate product documentation, including course profiles, learner exit profiles, curriculum maps, product outlines and skills summaries.
• Support employer and market conversations by ensuring teams understand the occupations, skills and career pathways connected to each training product.
• Address cross-functional risks and dependencies that may affect quality, launch timelines, learner experience or product adoption.
• Serve as a senior advisor to organizational leaders on curriculum strategy, technical-training trends and product-development decisions.

Measurement and Continuous Improvement

• Partner with Evaluation and Product Operations to establish key performance indicators for curriculum quality and effectiveness.
• Use learner data, instructor feedback, credential outcomes, completion rates and placement information to inform product improvements.
• Monitor portfolio performance and recommend targeted refreshes, redesigns or retirement decisions.
• Ensure pilots include clear evaluation questions, defined data-collection plans and post-pilot review periods.
• Track and improve curriculum-development timelines while maintaining quality and stakeholder alignment.
• Communicate portfolio progress, risks, capacity and outcomes through executive-level dashboards and reports.

Systems and Operational Excellence

• Partner with Product Operations to maintain reliable systems of record for curriculum artifacts, product decisions, version histories and portfolio status.
• Establish repeatable workflows, templates, governance structures and documentation standards.
• Ensure curriculum requirements account for enterprise systems and platforms, including the LMS, content repositories, CRM, cloud environments and instructional technologies.
• Identify and resolve process gaps that affect curriculum quality, development speed, adoption or scalability.
• Support annual planning, budgeting, vendor management and resource forecasting for Product Design and Development.
• Ensure grant, contract and partner requirements are translated into realistic product deliverables, measurement expectations and timelines.

What You’ll Bring to Us

Professional Qualifications

• Ten or more years of progressively responsible experience in curriculum product development, learning design, technical training, education technology, workforce development or a related field.
• At least five years of experience leading multidisciplinary teams and managing senior-level professionals.
• Demonstrated success overseeing the design and development of complex learning products from discovery through implementation.
• Experience developing or managing technology-focused curriculum in areas such as software engineering, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data, artificial intelligence, IT support, infrastructure or advanced manufacturing.
• Strong understanding of adult-learning principles, competency-based education, assessment design and performance-based learning.
• Demonstrated ability to translate employer needs, labor-market information and technical requirements into scalable curriculum products.
• Experience managing product roadmaps, competing priorities, organizational capacity and cross-functional dependencies.
• Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to present complex information, risks and recommendations clearly.
• Experience using data to evaluate product performance and inform investment, refresh, redesign or retirement decisions.
• Demonstrated experience improving systems, processes, documentation and quality standards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in education, instructional design, organizational leadership, technology, business or a related field.
• Experience in workforce development, nonprofit education or multi-market training environments.
• Experience with learning-management systems, curriculum-authoring tools, product-management platforms and digital-content repositories.
• Familiarity with industry-recognized certifications and credentialing organizations.
• Experience leading AI-enabled curriculum development or integrating AI into technical-learning experiences.
• Experience managing external vendors, contractors and subject-matter experts.
• Experience supporting grant-funded, employer-sponsored or customized training initiatives.