Associate Senior Instructional Designer in Toronto

The Collectv designs and delivers high-impact leadership and learning solutions using a senior-led, technology-first approach that combines human expertise with AI to move faster without sacrificing quality. We are looking for an Associate Senior Instructional Designer who can help architect, design, and refine leadership-development experiences for complex clients, including public-sector and broader-enterprise environments. This is a role for someone who can think strategically, write clearly, operate independently, and still work shoulder-to-shoulder with a founder-led boutique firm when pace and precision matter.

Responsibilities

• Lead or co-lead the design of blended leadership-development solutions, including virtual and in-person modules, learner journeys, facilitator guides, participant materials, job aids, and reinforcement tools.
• Translate stakeholder, SME, and facilitator input into clear learning objectives, module logic, application activities, and high-quality design documentation.
• Build materials that are facilitation-ready, client-ready, and proposal-ready.
• Apply an accessibility-first lens to documents, slide decks, learner materials, and activity design.
• Embed DAIR principles into scenarios, language, examples, interactions, and learning flow.
• Partner with the Program Lead, facilitators, producers, and project managers to ensure design intent translates cleanly into delivery.
• Contribute to evaluation design, application tools, reflection prompts, and post-program reinforcement where needed.
• Use AI responsibly to speed drafting, synthesis, and iteration while protecting confidentiality, accuracy, and inclusive design quality.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of adult-learning, learning-experience, or instructional-design experience.
• Demonstrated experience designing leadership, talent, or professional-skills programmes for large organizations with a strong facilitation-design empathy.
• Strong portfolio across at least three of the following: virtual ILT, classroom ILT, blended learning, job aids, participant guides, facilitator guides, e-learning storyboards, simulations, and reinforcement tools.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills, including translating ambiguous business needs into structured learning solutions.
• Clear evidence of designing accessible materials and experiences.
• Comfort working in a fast-moving consulting environment with multiple reviewers and tight timelines.
• Ability to work as an independent contractor with your own business presence and tools.
• Willingness to be named in proposals if mutually agreed.

Desired qualifications

• Experience supporting the Ontario public sector, broader public sector, federal, municipal, crown, or similarly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with leadership-development work for managers, senior leaders, and executive population.
• Experience collaborating with coaching providers, simulation partners, or external SMEs.
• French-language capability is an asset.

Core competencies

• Adult Learning, consultative design judgement, structured thinking, strong writing, executive-ready communication, inclusive design, accessibility fluency, calm pace under ambiguity, and responsible AI use.

AODA and DAIR expectations

For this role, accessibility and DAIR are not separate workstreams. You should be able to demonstrate how you:

• Design with accommodation in mind from the outset.
• Create accessible documents and learner artefacts.
• Use plain language where appropriate.
• Test for usability and clarity.
• Avoid exclusionary assumptions in examples and activities.
• Integrate anti-racism, inclusion, and accessibility into both content and learning experience design.

Sample day or week

A typical week might include a working session with the Program Lead/client to shape a leadership journey, independent drafting of a module architecture, converting SME input into a facilitator guide and participant workbook, reviewing materials for accessibility and inclusive language, aligning with a facilitator or producer on delivery intent, and tightening one or two proposal-ready bios or role descriptions for a client submission.

AI statement

The Collectv may use AI tools to organise applications or generate internal summaries, but a human reviewer will assess all shortlisted candidates and make all final engagement decisions.