Learning and Development Specialist Job Description
A learning and development specialist job description template covering instructional design, LMS administration and the ATS keywords employers screen for.
"Corporate trainer" and "L&D specialist" get used interchangeably in postings, but they usually describe different amounts of ownership. A trainer typically delivers a session someone else designed. An L&D specialist more often owns the whole pipeline: running the needs assessment, designing the curriculum, building the materials, and only then delivering or overseeing delivery. If a posting's responsibilities section is entirely about facilitation with nothing about design, it is closer to a trainer role regardless of the title on it.
Remote and distributed teams have shifted what this job actually requires day to day. Ten years ago, L&D was mostly about running a good in-person workshop. Now, designing a self-paced module someone can complete asynchronously, with no facilitator in the room to read confusion off a face, is just as central a skill as live facilitation — and for a fully remote role like this one, it is arguably the bigger half of the job.
Measurement is the part most programs skip. It is easy to track completion rates and post-session satisfaction scores; it is much harder to show that a training program changed an actual business metric, like faster new-hire ramp time or fewer repeat support escalations. Specialists who can talk concretely about having done the harder version are genuinely rare, and it is worth building that evidence deliberately if you are trying to move up in this field.
Perrindale · Remote (US)
Full-time · Remote
$60,000 – $82,000
About the role
Perrindale is hiring a Learning and Development Specialist to own onboarding curriculum and ongoing skills programs for our fully distributed team of roughly 150 people spread across US time zones. You will design both live virtual sessions and self-paced modules, and administer the learning management system (LMS) that tracks all of it.
You will work closely with subject-matter experts across the company — people who know their function well but have never designed a training program — and turn what they know into something a new hire can actually follow without them in the room.
What you'll do
- Conduct needs assessments with department leaders to identify real skill gaps, not assumed ones.
- Design curricula and learning paths for both new-hire onboarding and ongoing skills development.
- Build self-paced e-learning modules using an authoring tool such as Articulate Storyline or Rise.
- Administer the LMS: course enrollment, completion tracking and reporting to department leaders.
- Facilitate live virtual training sessions for groups ranging from a handful of people to the whole company.
- Partner with subject-matter experts to turn what they know into structured, repeatable content.
- Measure training effectiveness beyond post-session satisfaction scores wherever the data allows it.
- Maintain a content library so existing modules stay accurate as tools and processes change.
What we're looking for
- Three or more years in a learning and development or corporate training role.
- Hands-on instructional design experience — building a curriculum, not just delivering one someone else wrote.
- Experience administering an LMS, including reporting on completion and engagement.
- Experience building e-learning content in an authoring tool.
- Strong virtual facilitation skills — keeping a remote room engaged is a different skill from an in-person one.
- Comfortable interviewing subject-matter experts who are not professional communicators and shaping what they say into something usable.
Nice to have
- Familiarity with the ADDIE model or a comparable instructional design framework.
- Experience measuring training impact against a business metric, not only satisfaction scores.
- Background in adult learning theory, formal or self-taught.
- Experience with a specific LMS such as Cornerstone OnDemand, Workday Learning, or Docebo.
- Basic video editing or multimedia production skills.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 3% company match.
- Fully remote, with flexible hours across time zones.
- $1,500 annual budget toward instructional design coursework or a relevant conference.
- Eighteen days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$60,000–$82,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (6)
Mentioned in passing (7)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a corporate trainer and an L&D specialist?
A trainer typically delivers a session someone else designed — walking a group through existing material. An L&D specialist usually owns more of the pipeline: identifying the skill gap, designing the curriculum, building the materials, and delivering or overseeing delivery. In practice the titles overlap a lot, and small companies often expect one person to do both.
Do I need a degree in instructional design or education to apply?
No. Plenty of L&D specialists come from teaching, training delivery, or a subject-matter role that grew into designing programs for others. A credential in instructional design helps, but a portfolio of curriculum you have actually built tends to matter more to hiring managers than the credential does.
How is training effectiveness actually measured in this role?
The easy version is completion rates and post-session satisfaction surveys, and most programs stop there. The harder, more valuable version ties training to an actual change in behavior or a business metric — fewer support escalations after a product training, faster ramp time after a revised onboarding curriculum. Being able to talk concretely about having done the harder version is a real differentiator in an interview.
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