HMH is a learning technology company committed to delivering connected solutions that engage learners, empower educators and improve student outcomes. As a leading provider of K–12 core curriculum, supplemental and intervention solutions, and professional learning services, HMH partners with educators and school districts to uncover solutions that unlock students’ potential and extend teachers’ capabilities.
HMH serves more than 50 million students and 4 million educators in 150 countries. For more information, visit www.hmhco.com
Job Title: Principal Learning Experience Designer, K-5 Reading/Biliteracy
Location: Fully Remote - May be performed from any State in the US.
What you’ll do:
The Principal Learning Experience Designer will apply relevant experience to plan, develop, and deliver high-quality, clearly-written, pedagogically-appropriate, digital-first solutions that solve specific market problems shared by teachers and students. The person will typically lead a collaborative scrum team in solving a variety of demonstrated market problems. The person in this role leverages data from a variety of sources and is willing and able to nurture innovative thinking across the team to develop the best solutions possible given the existing constraints. This role will also model problem-solving prowess, effective collaboration, and prioritization skills to deliver incremental value to users aligned with the company’s strategic plans. The Principal will also steward, advocate, and serve as an implementor of a consistent user experience, especially in digital.
Working in Learning Experience Design (LXD) for Reading/Biliteracy, the Principal Learning Experience Designer will be responsible for the following primary duties:
User Experience and Instructional Design:
- Has K-5 Spanish language arts/biliteracy expertise that is valued for product development.
- Shares expertise/expectations across teams in a way that is actionable and leads to consistency.
- Reflects a willingness to learn new areas of expertise or work across grade bands and disciplines.
- Knows how to plan and develop grade-level-appropriate, standards-aligned content and metadata for digital and print mediums.
- Keeps what students must learn and be able to do at the forefront of any lesson development, particularly students in Spanish language and dual language classrooms.
- Demonstrates strong understanding of the end-user experience and uses that understanding to drive product development decisions and work.
- Seeks to understand new features in our digital experience that will influence development.
- Makes or recommends smart development decisions to future-proof or scale the work without sacrificing quality and usability—making sure to validate approaches across teams.
- Understands and abides by other compliance/regulatory factors or market trends that will impact decisions, knowing to what degree those requirements should drive product decisions and how they may impact user experience.
Agile Development:
- Can serve as a Product Owner on a scrum team responsible for solving more complex teaching and learning problems. Relies on discovery and data analysis to test, develop, deliver, and iteratively optimize solutions in a variety of media formats. Guides scrum team in setting priorities. Manages the product backlog and holds the team accountable to sprint plans
- Delivers value to customers in keeping with capacity constraints, budget, interdependencies across teams, and market expectations, often arriving at and advocating for fresh, innovative solutions that surprise and delight users.
- Understands, applies, and models agile story-pointing to enable the scrum team to carry out high-quality iterative development. Adeptly uses retrospectives as a way to solve problems and improve team output and collaboration.
- May work independently with internal groups/vendors on sprint-based cross-team tasks and cross-company initiatives.
- Develops and implements change management strategies and plans as needed.
Research:
- Actively uses research to help drive team decisions to develop solutions for a wide variety of users based on market problems and needs. Knowledgeable of specific types of research methods such as observation and qualitative themes, quantitative responses, and useability testing. Collaborates with the Research team to identify goals for testing. Is ultimately responsible for ensuring that research is carried out and results implemented.
- Is knowledgeable about most current research for simultaneous development in both English and Spanish, the different program models for multilingual learners, and making the connection between the two languages
Data Analysis:
- Understands the data have available and use that data to inform product development.
- Seeks out, applies, and synthesizes data from a variety of sources, including HMH's teaching and learning platform, to address market problems with input from key stakeholders
- If a Product Owner, ensures that the scrum team understands and utilizes usage and efficacy data (e.g., task difficulty, time on task, growth data) in order to iterate/improve upon instructional content.
Definition of Success:
- Delivers iterative solutions on time and within budget that meet market needs as measured by product sales, customer testimonials, and platform usage data.
- Clearly communicates program goals and philosophy with core and extended scrum team members.
- Fosters scrum team efficiency, morale, and success.
- Proactively seeks out and applies learnings from relevant connections across all LXD, across departments, or even lines of business.
What you’ll need:
Experience:
- 7–8 years experience in instructional design for K-12 students
- Expertise in Spanish language arts, biliteracy, and instruction and assessment for multilingual learners
- K-12 teaching experience (preferred)
- 1-2 years of Agile Scrum Product Owner experience
- Bachelor's Degree in Education, Instructional Design, or a field related to the discipline
- Fluent Spanish speaker; fully biliterate in English and Spanish
Technical Skills:
- Demonstrates a proficiency in many systems, including IPS/In Copy, Habitat, Plankton, OneCMS, and/or WebCMS/Learnosity.
- Sets up digital experiences effectively and consistently to ensure that the clearest data is available on the back end.
- Seeks to understand and prioritize consistency across disciplines and connected solutions.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, especially Excel and PowerPoint
- Agile methodology, JIRA (preferred)
- Data analysis/interpretation
- Scrum team management (preferred)
- Experience creating and using metadata (preferred)
How We Work (Competencies)
- Drives Results
- Manages Complexity
- Cultivates Innovation
- Collaborates
- Focuses on Customers
Physical Requirements
- Might be in a stationary position for a considerable time (sitting and/or standing)
- Constantly operate a computer
- Must be able to collaborate with colleagues via face to face, conference calls, and online meetings
- Must be capable of sitting, standing, and walking for extended periods of time.
Benefits and Salary Range
Salary Range - $85,000 to $110,000. Our salary ranges are based on national averages. We have wide ranges so we can be flexible and determine compensation based on a number of factors including the candidate’s skills, experience, education, and location.
Our Culture and Benefits - https://careers.hmhco.com/culture_benefits
Application Deadline
The application window for this position is anticipated to close on April 28, 2025. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. The posting may be available past this date but is not guaranteed.
HMH is fully committed to Equal Employment Opportunity and to attracting, retaining, developing and promoting the most qualified employees without regard to race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, family status, marital status, pregnancy, gender identity, ethnic/national origin, ancestry, age, disability, military status, genetic predisposition, citizenship status, status as a disabled veteran, recently separated veteran, Armed Forces service medal veteran, other covered veteran, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. We are dedicated to providing a work environment free from discrimination and harassment, and where employees are treated with respect and dignity. We actively participate in E-Verify.
