National Council for Mental Wellbeing Director, Learning Technology
Positively Partners · Washington, United States · remote
About the National Council for Mental Wellbeing
The vision of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing is to make mental wellbeing, including recovery from substance use challenges, a reality for everyone. Despite overwhelming need, nearly 30 million people across the U.S. do not have access to comprehensive mental health and substance use treatment.
Founded in 1969, the National Council is a 501(c)(3) membership organization that drives policy and social change on behalf of more than 3,100 mental health and substance use treatment organizations and the more than 10 million children, adults and families they serve. We advocate for policies to ensure equitable access to high-quality services, build the capacity of mental health and substance use treatment organizations, and promote greater understanding of mental wellbeing as a core component of health and health care. Through Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), we have trained more than 4.5 million people in the U.S. to identify, understand and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges.
The National Council operates as a remote-first organization, with employees working from locations across the United States.
The Opportunity
As Director, Learning Technology, you will help the National Council expand and improve its learning offerings by translating learner needs and program priorities into effective technology solutions. You will lead the continued development of an established learning technology ecosystem, including a custom-built platform, and help shape what it can do next. The opportunity is to understand the problems learners and program teams need to solve, explore the technical possibilities and guide the development of capabilities that make a meaningful difference.
From the start, you will work with product, program and learning colleagues to understand how the platform is used, where learners and teams encounter challenges, and what new use cases require. You will get to know its architecture, integrations and workflows, translate needs into functional specifications, and work with developers and vendors to carry improvements from design through testing and release. The product and program teams provide the business needs for the National Council’s learning ecosystem; you will bring the learning technology expertise and technical judgment that help turn those choices into practical, sustainable solutions.
Our programs serve different audiences, funders and learning goals, and learning paths are not always linear. A learner may enter through an assessment or survey, browse a catalog, receive a recommendation, or move through content based on outcomes, competencies or prior activity. The platform is already built to support complexity that conventional learning management systems do not easily accommodate. You will build on that foundation as learner needs and program use cases evolve.
This role will appeal to someone who enjoys exploring technology and building useful products, and who is equally curious about the people, business needs and practical constraints behind them. Working with Enterprise Technology colleagues and directly managing a team of three, you will guide platform decisions and delivery while keeping the system reliable, adaptable and sustainable as it grows.
Key Responsibilities
Learning Technology Strategy and Development
- Lead platform strategy, architecture and the technical roadmap for the National Council’s learning delivery ecosystem, with particular responsibility for the custom learning platform. Partner with product and program teams to connect business goals and user needs with opportunities to improve and extend the system.
- Develop a deep understanding of how National Council programs deliver learning, including non-linear pathways shaped by assessments, recommendations, competencies, outcomes, audience needs and program or grant requirements.
- Partner with product and program colleagues to shape functional specifications for new capabilities and enhancements. Translate business requirements and learner needs into clear platform requirements, workflows, user stories and acceptance criteria, contributing a technical perspective on feasibility, dependencies and tradeoffs.
- Make thoughtful build, buy, configure and integrate decisions in partnership with product and Enterprise Technology, preserving custom capabilities where they create meaningful value and using commercial tools where they are the better fit.
- Use learner feedback, platform data and operational insight to identify opportunities for improvement. Develop measures with product and program colleagues to understand how platform enhancements support learning and business outcomes and guide further development.
Platform Development and Technical Leadership
- Develop a deep understanding of the platform’s functional design, architecture, data flows, integrations and operating model to lead its continued development and day-to-day operation.
- Evolve the platform to accommodate new use cases and workflows while maintaining its coherence and reliability. Guide design choices that add useful capabilities and keep the system maintainable as it grows.
- Partner with developers, vendors and internal technology colleagues on solution design, APIs and integrations, identity and access, data and analytics, security, accessibility, scalability, reliability and performance.
- Guide solution design and review proposed technical approaches, helping developers and partners work through tradeoffs and ensuring new capabilities meet learning and business needs.
- Maintain strong functional and technical documentation so knowledge of the platform is durable and shared rather than concentrated in a single person.
- Lead enhancements and releases through testing, change management and operational readiness, bringing new capabilities into use while ensuring continuity for active learners and programs.
Cross Functional Collaboration
- Explore emerging needs and new use cases with product, program, curriculum, operations and technology colleagues, and shape a learning technology roadmap that supports the organization’s evolving goals.
- Develop clear intake and delivery planning practices with product and other partners so ideas can move from discovery to implementation. Work together on priorities, feasibility and sequencing, keeping stakeholders informed as enhancements take shape.
- Translate effectively between product, learning, program and technical teams, making complex choices understandable to non-technical partners and business needs actionable for developers.
- Manage external technology and development partners, setting clear expectations for scope, quality, timelines, documentation and support.
- Anticipate platform risks and dependencies and bring forward practical recommendations before they become barriers to program delivery.
Team Leadership
- Lead and develop a team of three, creating clarity around responsibilities, priorities and service expectations.
- Coach team members to deepen their learning technology, technical-product and operational capabilities, build shared knowledge of the platform and contribute to its continued development.
- Establish goals and measures for the team and ensure work aligns with Enterprise Technology and organizational priorities.
- Create an environment of accountability, collaboration, learning and respectful challenge.
What We Are Looking For
There are several paths to this role. Strong candidates may have grown through learning technology, LMS/LXP product ownership, education technology, customer education platforms, learning systems implementation, or a related product or technology discipline. We are more interested in the capabilities you bring than in a single prescribed career path.
Core Qualifications
- Significant experience owning, implementing or evolving learning technology products or pl