Fast Facts

Join WGU as a Program Development Owner, where you'll lead the design and development of innovative online education programs, ensuring high-quality curriculum and assessments to support student success.

Responsibilities: Oversee curriculum design and assessment for assigned programs, collaborate with stakeholders for quality evaluation, implement best practices, and maintain success metrics for program performance.

Skills: Excellent organizational and project management skills, strong online learning design capabilities, data analytics proficiency, and ability to manage multiple projects under pressure.

Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree required; 4 years of relevant experience including online education or educational publishing preferred, with advanced degrees in Nursing or related fields being a plus.

Location: Salt Lake City, UT, with a hybrid work schedule (4 days in-office, 1 day remote).

Compensation: $86000 - $129000 / Annually

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Faculty 508Pay Range: $86,000.00 - $129,000.00

Job Description

Job Profile Summary:

Reporting to the respective college’s director of assessment and curriculum, the program owner proactively leads the curriculum design, development, and support of an assigned program portfolio at Western Governors University (WGU). The individual oversees the

design, curation, development, and continuous improvement of effective curriculum, assessments, instructional models and content, and diagnostics. This individual participates in evaluating programs and learning experience quality and assesses program, course, assessment, and learning resource performance against student achievement. The program owner works with colleagues in academics, operations, evaluation, and others to provide input about potential changes to the curriculum, assessment, instructional models, academic support services, and field/clinical experiences. Program owners are responsible for implementing the requirements defined by the program charter regarding curriculum and assessment design, on time and budget.

Location: This position requires you to work at our headquarters, 4001 South 700 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84107. You would work a hybrid schedule in the office 4 days a week with one day remote.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities: 

• Owns curriculum and assessment within assigned programs, including relevance, quality, technical accuracy, functionality, and assessment validity. Ensure timely delivery of quality programs.
• Implements and ensures adherence to best practices in the design, development, delivery, and maintenance of assigned product portfolio. 
• Collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure programs meet all accreditation and regulatory requirements. Ensures alignment between curriculum and assessment. 
• Provides thought leadership and recommend innovations in learning products, learning design, and delivery based on data analysis and learning science.
• Evaluates and analyzes program and course performance as required for operation and quality improvement.
• Develops and maintains success metrics and time, budget, and quality measures.
• Contribute to critical documentation in support of the full product lifecycle. 
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

•  Excellent organizational and project management skills, including the ability to effectively handle multiple tasks and pay attention to detail
• Understand product-level curriculum and assessment design and development
• Strong online learning design and development skills
• Clear understanding of user-experience best practices, including accessibility requirements
• Ability to facilitate groups and meetings in person and remotely
• Ability to manage multiple projects efficiently
• Excellent written, oral, presentation, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to build relationships and influence at all levels, both internally and externally
• Data analytics skills, including interpretation, synthesis, and formal presentation to key stakeholders
• Proven ability to use data to make informed decisions (analyze root causes, design experiments and interventions with clear success measures, conduct retrospective analysis, etc.).
• Detail-oriented, with proven ability to handle multiple tasks
• Requires composure under pressure, dealing with ambiguity and comfort working closely with senior leadership

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or discipline.
• All applicable licenses or certifications.
• 4 years of relevant professional experience.
• Experience in online education, standardized testing, or educational publishing
• Experience interacting effectively with cross-organizational teams

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Nursing or a related field or discipline.
• Experience in product or program management.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.