Instructional Designer; Remote, Hybrid, or On-Site

Position: Instructional Designer (Remote, Hybrid, or On-Site)
Instructional Designer (Remote, Hybrid, or On-Site)

San Francisco Bay University

Category: Staff

Type: Full Time

Min.

Experience:

Some Experience

Salary: $90,000 - $115,000

About San Francisco Bay University San Francisco Bay University (SFBU), a nonprofit, WASC-accredited university located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Fremont, California, seeks an innovative and collaborative Instructional Designer. SFBU's mission is to offer inclusive, innovative, and inspirational education for lifelong careers, and our vision is to set the standard as a national model of higher education in service of the common good.

At SFBU, students come first. We prioritize students' needs by fostering meaningful engagement among students, faculty, and staff. We are committed to affordable, high-quality education with a deep commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and social justice. We encourage you to learn more about SFBU by reviewing our strategic plan at:
Position Overview Imagine helping shape how a new kind of degree program feels to the students who take it. SFBU's Pro+ programs bring together faculty expertise, AI coaching, and real-world projects, and we are looking for an Instructional Designer to help us build them, starting with MBA Pro+ and growing with each new program we launch. You will join a small, collaborative team in SFBU's Center for Empowerment and Pedagogical Innovation (CEPI), working alongside faculty, subject matter experts, fellow instructional designers, the Chief Learning Officer, and the development partners who build our courses in Canvas.

You will not be starting from a blank page:
Pro+ courses follow a shared course model and a set of Canvas templates, and the team will help you learn them. Much of the work is the part of instructional design many of us enjoy most: planning how a course unfolds, shaping assignments and rubrics so students know what success looks like, making sure every page is clear and accessible, and testing how AI coaching supports learners along the way.

As new Pro+ programs launch, you will help adapt the model so each one feels connected and easy to follow. We value curiosity and care for students as much as any single skill. If you think about how students experience a course, enjoy turning feedback into concrete improvements, and are interested in how AI can support learning, we would love to hear from you, even if you have not yet used every tool listed below.

Most of your time will go to Pro+ program development. The rest supports instructional design across SFBU, such as course reviews, faculty consultations, Canvas course setup, and accessibility fixes. This is a full-time, 12-month contract position, renewable contingent upon performance review. This position is eligible for a remote, hybrid, or on-site work arrangement, subject to University policies and business needs.

Candidates must reside in California. The role requires regular availability during Pacific Time business hours for meetings and collaboration with faculty, the CEPI team, and development partners.
Responsibilities

• Plan Pro+ courses across programs before they are built: module and lesson blueprints that set outcomes, topics, activities, assessments, human touchpoints, and the Canvas pages and assets each lesson needs.
• Map program, course, and module outcomes to activities, resources, assessments, and signature assignment milestones; resolve gaps or misalignment before launch.
• Write and edit learner-facing Canvas content, including overviews, lesson pages, and assignment directions, using transparent assignment design so each page states its purpose, task, and success criteria.
• Develop and review assessments, rubrics, quizzes, and formative checks, and confirm that every requirement in an assignment's directions is assessed by its rubric.
• Design scaffolded preparation for major assignments so that early work feeds later deliverables.
• Review courses module by module against the course learning model and blueprint. Record findings with the exact Canvas location, priority, and a specific recommendation, and keep curriculum alignment issues separate from learner-experience improvements.
• Review courses built by external development partners, give structured and prioritized feedback, and confirm fixes before release.
• Test AI coaching activities from the perspective of both a confident and a struggling learner; distinguish one-off issues from patterns confirmed across activities before recommending course-wide…