Principal Learning Designer, Life Skills

Level•Austin, TX

About The Position

Level is seeking a Learning Designer to own the pedagogy behind its Life Skills curriculum, defining what each skill is, how it develops, how it is best taught at a given age, and whether modules teach it effectively. The role works across pods with designers to bring deep subject understanding into learning experiences and uphold learning rigor across cognitive, emotional, social, self, and systemic life skills, from concept through classroom pilot. This is a high-responsibility editorial role on a small, fast-moving team. The work is split between shaping modules with designers and maintaining the quality bar as they are built. The role requires making decisions amid uncertainty, sharing early ideas, and learning through iteration. It also involves staying current with life skills learning science, working with the research team to validate modules, and translating efficacy findings into concrete improvements that can be applied across the team.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in instructional design, learning design, or curriculum development.
Background in how people learn, such as learning science, child development, or comparable grounding, and interest in keeping up with research.
Passion for learning new domains deeply and quickly and applying that understanding.
Strong product and creative sense, including the ability to evaluate what is working in an experience and explain why, with care for coherence, polish, and the end-user journey.
Comfort making decisions without complete information, sharing rough versions early, and identifying and surfacing personal mistakes.
Ability to uphold a quality bar and provide specific, supportive editorial feedback on others’ work.
Strong project management skills and ability to oversee multiple modules across pods simultaneously.
Strong cross-functional communication skills, including translating learning goals into actionable design briefs and design constraints into pedagogical decisions.
Comfort using frontier AI models and understanding where AI is insufficient.

Nice To Haves

Background in social-emotional learning or life skills.
K-12 classroom teaching experience.
Experience in games, animation, or interactive media production.
Experience incorporating research findings directly into product or content decisions.
Portfolio or work samples demonstrating instructional design, curriculum, or interactive learning content; applicants are invited to include a link.

Responsibilities

Develop a deep understanding of each curriculum skill, including what it is, how it develops, and how it is best taught at a given age; translate this into clear direction for designers.
Concept learning experiences with designers, shaping games and narratives that teach effectively and appeal to children.
Break skills into components and techniques, using AI to generate an initial pass and refining it with subject-matter experts and pedagogical judgment.
Consult on concepts as they become mechanics and scripts, iterating continuously with designers.
Integrate contributions from designers and subject-matter experts and make judgments about pedagogical coherence when it conflicts with the experience.
Review work across pods, uphold learning standards, decide what advances or needs revision, and provide specific, actionable editorial feedback.
Build fluency in the curriculum framework and learn new domains and subcategories well enough to make judgment calls.
Track learning goals across pods from concept through classroom pilot, including module targets, results, and curriculum gaps.
Turn efficacy findings into changes to modules and curriculum.
Stay current with life skills learning science and work with the research team to ensure modules receive appropriate validation.
Translate research findings into concrete changes that can be shared with the broader team.
Apply curriculum craft and judgment to new projects, formats, and experiments as they arise.