(Short-term Contract) REMOTE Instructional Designer

Job Description

Job Description

(Short-term Contract) REMOTE Instructional Designer

CapeTalent isn't your average staffing agency. We connect AI-forward Learning & Development professionals with Fortune 100 companies who are shaping the future.

CONTRACT DETAILS

1099 or C2C (No W2)

• 6 WEEK contract (ends before Thanksgiving)
• 100% Remote (U.S. or Canadian candidates only)
• Start date: October 2026
• 40 hours per week @ $50–$60/hour (C2C or 1099), based on experience
• Standard U.S. business hours (EST/CST/MST/PST)
• Heavy Slack collaboration + Laptop provided
• Portfolio REQUIRED

THE ROLE

This is an Individual Contributor (IC) role. We're looking for a Instructional Designer who designs and builds in equal measure, and who does their best work when the pace is quick and the problems are loosely defined. You'll own complete learning journeys end to end — not one-off courses — translating dense FinTech and SaaS product workflows into experiences that feel simple, hold attention, and scale across a global audience.

The work covers both net-new builds and reimagined legacy content, and leans on the modern toolkit: branching scenarios, simulations, persona-led microlearning, gamified interactions, and reusable design systems. Day to day, you'll work alongside fellow designers, developers, program managers, SMEs, and product and technical partners, and you'll be the one bringing order and creative momentum when the brief is still taking shape.

How we build matters here. Production runs on a structured, AI-assisted workflow with Claude embedded at the points where it saves the most time — shaping outlines and design packages, drafting content, and populating build files. We work in Claude Projects and Claude Cowork, with approved prompts, shared context, and version history living alongside the build so nothing gets lost between sessions. The intent isn't to replace your craft; it's to clear the repetitive work so your energy goes to design decisions, learning science, and iteration. Every AI output is a first draft, not a deliverable — you drive the judgment, the review, and the polish.

What You'll Do

• Build full learning journeys tied to real workflows and the performance outcomes they're meant to move.
• Produce storyboards and learning flows clear enough that development can run smoothly and at scale.
• Take tired legacy material and rebuild it into something visual, current, and genuinely learner-first.
• Grow the shared toolkit — design systems, frameworks, prompt libraries, and reusable models others can build on.
• Craft interactive facilitator-led and live virtual sessions, complete with participant materials and facilitation guides.
• Build persona-driven microlearning, simulations, and game mechanics that lift engagement and retention.
• Use Articulate Storyline as the home base for builds — with AI feedback and interactions living inside the course itself — and design in Rise where clean, rapid development matters.
• Weave in video, animation, and other media so the finished experience feels cohesive and polished.
• Rework existing templates for better flow and engagement — nothing ships straight out of the box.
• Keep everything compliant, tracked, and QA'd in Docebo (Learning Management System).
• Work inside our AI-assisted build workflow — using Claude, Claude Cowork, Gemini, and NotebookLM to accelerate outlining, drafting, content development, prototyping, file population, and revision cycles, with human review at every gate.
• Work shoulder-to-shoulder with SMEs to keep learning anchored to business goals and metrics.
• Juggle several projects at once without losing speed, quality, or deadlines — and without needing much oversight.
• Operate comfortably against SLAs and clear milestone gates (storyboard → development → QA → sign-off).

What We're Looking For

• At least 5 years designing and developing instructional content, backed by a portfolio of end-to-end journeys, scenario work, and impact you can point to. We weigh the quality and speed of your work over length of experience.
• You already build with generative AI in live production — Claude (including Claude Cowork and Projects), Gemini, NotebookLM. It's woven into how we work, not a nice-to-have.
• Practical prompting skill: you know how to give a model the right source material and context, iterate on an output rather than accepting the first one, and tell the difference between a draft that's close and a draft that's confidently wrong.
• Fast and assured in Articulate 360 (Storyline and Rise) and 7Taps, for quick prototyping and storyboarding.
• Comfortable in Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Audition) to create and integrate multimedia.
• Enough fluency with JavaScript and Storyline web objects to know how they stretch what a course can do.
• A track record building interactive, facilitator-led and live virtual sessions that are engaging, scalable, and outcomes-driven.
• A reputation for shipping strong work quickly when volume is high.
• Skilled at turning complicated systems into learning that changes performance.
• Background designing for customer-facing teams or product training.
• Evidence that your work moves the needle on adoption, engagement, and time-to-proficiency (completion, NPS, practical assessment results, etc.).
• Experience creating reusable, scalable content, templates, and frameworks.
• Grounded in learning science — cognitive load, Bloom's, the forgetting curve and spaced reinforcement, behavior change and motivation, and microlearning/chunking.
• At home in Agile and fast-paced settings.

Why This Role?

• You get a kick out of making complex products feel simple and engaging to learn.
• You want a seat in high-impact FinTech/SaaS enterprise product training.
• You like roles that mix strategy with hands-on building.
• You do your best work in modern, fast-moving learning environments.
• Innovation, speed, and quality are things you actually care about.
• Ambiguity doesn't rattle you — you bring the structure.
• AI-powered tools and workflows energize you rather than intimidate you.
• Learner experience, adoption, and usability genuinely matter to you.

We're looking for someone who can:

• Design learning experiences, not just content.
• Build quickly using modern tools and AI — with human judgment on every deliverable.
• Drive measurable impact through engagement, adoption, and performance.

Ready to apply? Submit your resume and portfolio link to be considered.