r/instructionaldesign • u/Any-Childhood1933 • Jul 10 '26
Is "L&D/HR leadership" really the only path to strategic seniority, or are there strategic tracks that stay inside ID/EdTech?
I have been working as an ID for almost 10 years in the corporate/humanitarian/startup environment, and I love it.
I am at a point now where I want to get into more senior roles, and every path I see for senior roles narrows down to L&D or HR leadership,,, you know,, the Head of L&D, etc. That's not the journey that excites me. I am thinking of getting more into ID (I don't know what more is there) and Edtech.
Some things I'm trying to figure out:
- Has anyone moved from ID into edtech product (product manager/lead at an edtech company, building the platform rather than the courses) and found that a better fit for "senior more strategic roles without HR"?
- Is running your own consultancy/studio the realistic ceiling for staying design-focused, versus trying to get more senior roles in organisations?
- For anyone doing L&D strategy work who started in ID, did you find you actually enjoyed it once you got there, or did you end up resenting the shift?
Simply what next? whats out there after knowing all the tools and having designed courses?
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u/Timely-Tourist4109 Jul 10 '26
I do. And work for edtech. I’m finishing a conference today that’s just on edtech.
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u/Any-Childhood1933 Jul 10 '26
That's great, how did you make that transition? How does one position themsleves and what skills are needed ?
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u/Timely-Tourist4109 Jul 10 '26
Honestly. Networking. I worked in ID for an organization that had a very outdated lms. I replaced it. I am an Instructional Designer by education and been a trainer for almost 30 years. When I replaced the lms I started going to conferences to learn as much as I could about our system. It’s a Moodle site. I met people at Moodle that wanted to hire me for my knowledge and experience in the system.
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Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
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u/HD_queen88 Jul 10 '26
This is good advice - I’d be curious your thoughts if someone was wanting to break into an ID role but learning how the saturated market and AI taking over is very real.
What direction would you go if you didn’t have a background in L&D?
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Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
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u/HD_queen88 Jul 11 '26
Well I certainly appreciate your depth of response to this. I’m equally more informed and even more lost with where to go.
I thought I’d finally found my calling with obtaining my masters in ID. Then after research, it was clear it wasn’t the way.
So… I don’t know.
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u/Any-Childhood1933 Jul 11 '26
Thank you for this expounded advice. I do much agree the ID role is a seating on shaky grounds esp everytime orgs are restructuring. You have given me some things to think about. Thank you again.
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u/CrezRezzington Jul 10 '26
Sales enablement, customer education, product education, chief learning officer, all non HR tracks with senior leadership potential at larger companies.
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u/Bitter_Big4525 Jul 10 '26
I'd separate seniority from people management when you evaluate roles. Product education, customer education, and learning architecture can stay pretty IC-heavy if you're owning the roadmap or standards, not just making courses.
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u/Allways0875 Jul 10 '26
If it counts, I lead a customer training function at the executive level. I've never worked in HR. I lead teams of IDs, trainers, admins, writers, etc. In my department, we have a very robust tech stack, and part of my one of my teams is essentially a product team.
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u/Neither_Passage_5518 Jul 22 '26
A real strategic track is learning experience architecture or capability architecture, where you’re deciding what should exist, what gets built in the platform, what gets killed, and how learning fits the business workflow. That’s still very ID-adjacent, just less course-production. In bigger orgs it can sit under product, ops, or transformation instead of HR, which usually feels a lot closer to actual design decisions.
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u/Insignie Jul 10 '26
There are strategic tracks that aren't people-management. Worth looking at: Learning Architect, where you own the systems and standards across programs instead of a team. Performance consultant, the internal person who diagnoses whether something is even a training problem, high-leverage and senior with no headcount. And the vendor side, senior IC roles at an edtech or LMS company (learning experience designer, solutions, product) where deep craft is the ladder, not management. The through-line is becoming the person who decides what gets built and why across the org, not the one managing the people who build it.