Learning Design Lead

About us

Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production.

Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more. We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.

The role

As a Learning Design Lead, you will build the instructional backbone of our annotator hiring and onboarding pipeline. Today, annotator training and screening are handled ad hoc — no one on the team has a background in instructional design, and we're essentially winging it. This role exists to fix that: designing training modules robust enough that annotators can learn the task easily, and screening modules rigorous enough that we consistently pass the right people through to production work. This is a foundational hire for a broader goal of automating the end-to-end annotator hiring process.

What you'll do

• Design and build training modules that teach annotators a given task clearly and efficiently, so they can be onboarded with minimal hand-holding

• Design screening/assessment modules that are difficult enough to reliably separate annotators who will perform well in production from those who won't

• Define grading criteria and pass/fail thresholds for screening assessments, advising the team on how to score submissions, since this methodology doesn't currently exist at Encord

• Use production performance data to continuously validate and refine both training and screening content

• Partner with the Data Strategy team to move toward a fully automated annotator hiring pipeline

Who we're looking for

• A rigorous instructional designer with a strong grounding in learning science and assessment design: rubric design, calibrating item/task difficulty, and validity of pass/fail cutoffs

• A track record of building training or certification content that measurably improves learner readiness

• Experience designing assessments or screening tools that predict on-the-job performance, ideally in an operational or workforce-training setting

• Comfortable operating without an established playbook. You'll be building this methodology from scratch

• Data-driven: you validate and iterate on content using real production performance signals, not just intuition

Experience requirements

• 5–6+ years of total professional experience

• At least 2+ years in instructional design, curriculum development, assessment/test design, or a related EdTech role

• Solid grounding in learning science and assessment design (e.g., rubric design, calibrating item/task difficulty, validity of pass/fail cutoffs)

• Bonus: background at an EdTech company or in a corporate L&D function

• Bonus: familiarity with data annotation, labeling, or data operations workflows

• Bonus: experience designing or scaling a hiring/screening pipeline

Why Encord

• Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth start-up

• Clear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly

• Strong in-person culture: 4 days/week

• Flexible PTO to fully recharge

• Annual learning & development budget

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage

• Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe

• Bi-annual company offsites, twice-weekly team lunches, and monthly socials