Associate Director - Learning Experience, Youth Program

Quest Alliance; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 4,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Quest Alliance’s Youth Program aims to strengthen vocational education by enabling young people to build future skills and transition into thriving careers. The Associate Director – Learning Experience will shape the program’s approach, align with the Learning Experience Framework and ensure learning experiences are contextualised across diverse geographies and skilling ecosystems.

Lead strategy, technology-enabled learning, capacity building and strategic leadership across priority themes,

Qualifications

• Postgraduate qualification in education, learning design, development studies, social sciences, management, technology, public policy or a related field.
• Approximately 12–15 years of relevant experience, including substantial leadership in learning design and programs.

Responsibilities

• Steward the Youth Program’s learning experience strategy and align with the Learning Experience Framework.
• Build coherence across content, technology, capacity building, future skills, gender, industry engagement and transitions to work.
• Guide multidisciplinary teams with clear priorities, quality standards, mentorship and collaboration across teams.
• Provide strategic leadership across priority themes, including Future Skills and Women and Work.
• Shape the evidence and learning agenda, pilots and scale decisions using data and stakeholder feedback.

Skills

Learning experience design

Technology-enabled learning

Stakeholder engagement

Strategic leadership

Data-driven decision making

Education

Postgraduate qualification in education/learning design/management/tech

Job description

Quest Alliance’s Youth Program works to strengthen vocational education and skilling ecosystems so that young people can build the skills, confidence and agency required to navigate a changing world of work.

We work across long-term and short-term skilling ecosystems, partnering with Industrial Training Institutes, government departments, civil society organisations, trainers, principals, placement officers, industry partners and other ecosystem stakeholders.

Our work brings together technology-enabled learning experience design, stakeholder capacity building, future skills, gender-responsive programming, industry engagement and meaningful transitions to work, supported by data, research and evidence.

Role Purpose:

The Associate Director – Learning Experience will shape the Youth Program’s approach to enabling young people to build future skills and transition into thriving careers.

Guided by Quest Alliance’s Learning Experience Framework, the role will bring together learner needs, industry demand, organisational priorities and wider sector perspectives to strengthen the program’s learning experiences. It will ensure that these experiences are contextualised across diverse geographies and skilling ecosystems, enabled by technology and connected to meaningful pathways after training.

The role will work through dedicated vertical anchors and multidisciplinary teams. The focus will be on strengthening quality, enabling innovation, and providing strategic leadership across the Youth Program's priority thematic areas, while building coherence across learning, technology, capacity building and pathways to thriving careers.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Learning Experience Strategy, Coherence and Team Leadership

Steward the Youth Program’s learning experience strategy in alignment with Quest Alliance’s Learning Experience Framework and intended outcomes for young people.

Build coherence across content, technology, capacity building, future skills, gender, industry engagement and transitions to work.

Guide vertical anchors and multidisciplinary teams through clear priorities, quality standards, thought partnership and ongoing mentoring.

Enable effective collaboration across program implementation, product, technology, Knowledge Hub, partnerships and other organisational teams.

Strengthen the contextualisation of learning experiences across states, institutions and long-term and short-term skilling ecosystems.

Bring demand side perspectives, learner aspirations and implementation insights into the continued evolution of learning experience models.

2. Technology-Enabled Learning and Product Innovation

Shape the direction of digital, blended and technology-enabled learning experiences for young people and program stakeholders.

Work with product and technology teams to influence product priorities, user journeys, features and innovation opportunities.

Ensure that learning products are informed by sound pedagogy, the organisational Learning Experience Framework, user needs and implementation realities.

Guide experimentation with artificial intelligence-enabled learning, conversational tools and other emerging technologies.

Strengthen the use of learner feedback and product usage data to improve content and learning experiences.

3. Capacity Building and Stakeholder Development

Shape the program’s capacity-building approach for trainers, principals, placement officers, government officials, partners and internal teams.

Guide the development of differentiated, contextualised and personalized models for diverse stakeholder groups.

Strengthen approaches that combine training with coaching, peer learning, communities of practice and ongoing institutional support.

Establish common quality principles and mechanisms to assess sustained changes in stakeholder practice, confidence and ownership.

4. Strategic Leadership Across Priority Themes

Provide strategic leadership across the Youth Program's priority thematic areas, ensuring they are integrated into learning experiences, program strategy and implementation. Working closely with internal teams and external partners, the role will guide organisational thinking, strengthen internal capability and ensure these priorities remain relevant, evidence-informed and responsive to the evolving needs of young people. This includes:

Providing strategic direction on Future Skills, including emerging areas such as green skills, artificial intelligence and evolving technologies, ensuring learning experiences remain relevant to changing workforce and industry trends.

Strengthening the organisation's approach to Women and Work by embedding gender-responsive practices across learning experiences, institutional engagement, career guidance and transition pathways.

Guiding the integration of demand-led learning and meaningful transitions, ensuring learning experiences prepare young people for employment, apprenticeships, entrepreneurship, self-employment, higher education and other career pathways while balancing industry needs with young people's aspirations and agency.

Building strategic partnerships with government, industry, academia and ecosystem partners to strengthen programme relevance and organisational capability.

Ensuring these thematic priorities are informed by research, implementation insights, learner feedback and emerging trends, translating them into scalable models, tools and practices.

5. Data, Evidence and Ecosystem Learning

Shape the evidence and learning agenda for the learning experience portfolio in collaboration with the Knowledge Hub, product and program teams.

Identify the key questions and data required to understand learner engagement, learning outcomes, implementation quality and transitions.

Ensure that insights from research, data, learner feedback and field implementation inform improvements in program and product design.

Guide pilots and evaluations that test assumptions, strengthen models and inform decisions about scale.

Bring wider sector knowledge and external expertise into the program, while sharing relevant evidence and innovations with partners and stakeholders.

Required Experiences & Skills:

Postgraduate qualification in education, learning design, development studies, social sciences, management, technology, public policy or a related field.

Approximately 12–15 years of relevant experience, including substantial