How to Build an L&D Team: Which Roles to Hire First

Building a Learning & Development team from scratch presents a difficult hiring question.

Who do you hire first when the organization needs several different types of learning expertise?

You might need someone to establish an L&D strategy, design onboarding, build eLearning, facilitate training, administer an LMS, and measure results.

But those responsibilities don’t automatically belong in one job.

Trying to cover everything with a single hire is one of the most common mistakes organizations make when establishing a learning function.

The better approach is to identify the work that needs to happen, determine which capabilities are missing, and hire in an order that reflects your business priorities.

That might mean starting with an L&D leader.

It might mean hiring an instructional designer.

Or it might mean bringing in a contractor to address an immediate project while you establish a longer-term team structure.

The right sequence depends on what the organization needs L&D to accomplish.

Here’s how to make those decisions.

First, Don’t Try to Hire an L&D Unicorn

Before deciding which role to hire first, avoid a common mistake: writing a job description that combines several distinct L&D jobs.

It’s easy to see how this happens.

The organization needs learning support, so the first job description includes everything:

• L&D strategy
• Instructional design
• eLearning development
• Facilitation
• LMS administration
• Learning analytics
• Project management
• Stakeholder consulting
• Video production
• Change management

Some learning professionals have broad experience across these areas.

But that doesn’t mean one person should be responsible for all of them.

The result is often a role that is difficult to recruit for and even harder to perform successfully.

What Teamed’s career data tells us

Teamed analyzed career histories from 3,375 professionals with more than one role recorded in our recruitment data.

Only 40 people—approximately 1% of that group—showed a recorded move into an L&D leadership role.

That doesn’t mean instructional designers or other specialists can’t become leaders. Career histories in a recruitment database are incomplete, and the figures measure recorded transitions rather than every promotion or career move.

But the finding challenges a common assumption.

Organizations shouldn’t build an L&D function on the expectation that a specialist hire will automatically grow into the leadership role they haven’t filled.

Instructional Designer was the largest feeder role by recorded transition volume, with 825 transitions in the analyzed career sequences, compared with 493 for the next-largest feeder.

Specialist paths such as learning experience design and curriculum design also showed some movement into leadership, but less frequently than broader instructional design and program or project work.

The practical lesson is straightforward:

If your organization needs someone to own learning strategy, stakeholder relationships, prioritization, and team direction, hire for those capabilities deliberately.

Don’t assume a strong course developer will naturally become the L&D leader you need later.

Step 1: Define What L&D Needs to Accomplish

Before writing a job description, clarify why you’re building an L&D function.

Perhaps employee onboarding is inconsistent.

Maybe managers need better leadership development.

Product knowledge changes faster than employees can keep up.

Compliance training is difficult to manage.

Or the business has grown beyond informal knowledge-sharing.

These are different problems.

And they don’t all require the same first hire.

Start by asking:

• What business or performance problems are we trying to solve?
• Who are the learners?
• What learning already exists?
• What needs to be created or improved?
• Will learning be digital, instructor-led, blended, or on the job?
• Who currently manages learning technology?
• Who will set priorities with business leaders?
• Which responsibilities will be ongoing?
• Which needs are tied to specific projects or deadlines?

The answers should shape your L&D team structure.

Hire around the work, not around a generic list of L&D job titles.

Hire #1: An L&D Leader or Senior Generalist

If you’re creating an organization-wide learning function with no established strategy, your first hire should usually provide direction before production.

Depending on the organization’s size and needs, this might be a:

• Head of Learning & Development
• L&D Manager
• Learning Strategist
• Senior L&D Business Partner
• Experienced L&D Generalist

This person’s responsibility isn’t simply to create training.

They need to understand the business, diagnose performance needs, establish priorities, manage stakeholders, and determine which learning solutions are worth investing in.

They also need to recognize when training isn’t the right intervention.

For example, if employees are struggling with a new process, the underlying problem might be unclear documentation, poor system design, conflicting expectations, or insufficient practice.

A strong L&D leader investigates those possibilities before commissioning a course.

When to prioritize this hire

Hire an L&D leader first when:

• The organization lacks a learning strategy.
• Multiple departments have competing training requests.
• Senior stakeholders need a dedicated learning partner.
• Learning investments aren’t connected to clear business priorities.
• The company expects to build a larger L&D function.

For a smaller organization, a senior generalist who combines strategy with hands-on design may be more practical than a dedicated Head of L&D.

But be clear about the balance.

If the role is primarily strategic, don’t overload it with full-time course development and LMS administration.

Hire #2: An Instructional Designer or Learning Experience Designer

Once you understand what needs to be built, you need someone who can translate business and learner needs into effective learning experiences.

That’s where an Instructional Designer (ID) or Learning Experience Designer (LXD) becomes valuable.

Depending on the role, responsibilities may include:

• Conducting learning needs analysis
• Defining learning objectives
• Designing curricula
• Creating storyboards
• Developing eLearning
• Building assessments
• Collaborating with subject matter experts
• Evaluating learning effectiveness

The key is to hire for instructional judgment, not simply software proficiency.

Knowing Articulate Storyline, Rise, or another authoring tool can be valuable.

But tools don’t replace the ability to analyze a learning problem and design an appropriate solution.

When to prioritize this hire

Hire an instructional designer early when:

• Learning priorities are already defined.
• The organization needs scalable onboarding or training.
• Existing content is inconsistent or ineffective.
• SMEs are producing training without instructional design support.
• Learning development demand is becoming continuous.

What to evaluate

Look for evidence of how candidates approach learning problems.

Ask them to explain their design decisions, stakeholder collaboration, and individual contributions.

A relevant work sample can provide stronger evidence than a long list of authoring tools.

Hire #3: Facilitation or Training Expertise

Not every learning need should become an eLearning course.

If your organization relies heavily on leadership development, sales enablement, workshops, customer education, or complex behavioral skills, facilitation may deserve an early place on the team.

A facilitator or corporate trainer brings a different skill set from an instructional designer.

They need to manage live learning environments, encourage participation, adapt to learner needs, and turn content into meaningful discussion and practice.

In a small L&D function, one person may design and facilitate.

As demand increases, separating those responsibilities can improve both capacity and quality.

When to prioritize this hire

Hire facilitation expertise when:

• Live learning is central to your development strategy.
• Managers or SMEs spend too much time delivering training.
• Programs require practice, coaching, or group discussion.
• Training demand spans multiple locations or teams.
• The organization needs consistent delivery across cohorts.

This role can also be well suited to contract or part-time arrangements when delivery demand fluctuates.

Hire #4: LMS Administration or Learning Technology Support

The more learning you deliver, the more infrastructure matters.

An LMS Administrator or Learning Technology Specialist helps keep the learning environment reliable, organized, and accessible.

Depending on the organization, responsibilities may include:

• Platform administration
• Learner enrollment
• Permissions and provisioning
• Reporting
• SCORM troubleshooting
• Integrations
• Content governance
• Vendor management
• Learner support

Organizations often spread this work across instructional designers, HR operations, and IT.

That may be manageable temporarily.

But as learning volume grows, administration can consume time that specialists should spend on design, delivery, or strategy.

When to prioritize this hire

Hire LMS or learning technology support when:

• Platform administration is becoming a substantial workload.
• Reporting is unreliable.
• Integrations are increasingly complex.
• Learner support requests are growing.
• The organization is implementing or migrating an LMS.
• Multiple departments are publishing learning content.

An LMS implementation can justify hiring this expertise much earlier in the sequence.

The order should reflect your environment.

Hire #5: Learning Analytics and Evaluation Expertise

As the L&D function matures, the question often changes.

Instead of asking, “What training can we build?” leadership starts asking, “Is the learning actually improving performance?”

That’s where learning analytics and evaluation expertise becomes more important.

This capability helps connect learning activity with:

• Skills development
• Learner performance
• Workplace behavior
• Business outcomes
• Program effectiveness
• Future learning priorities

You may not need a dedicated learning analyst immediately.

An L&D leader or instructional designer can establish basic measurement practices early.

But organizations with large learner populations, sophisticated learning systems, or significant workforce development investments may eventually need deeper expertise.

When to prioritize this hire

Hire learning analytics or evaluation expertise when:

• Leadership expects stronger evidence of L&D impact.
• The team has data but limited capacity to interpret it.
• Learning programs operate at significant scale.
• Measurement requirements are becoming more complex.
• Business leaders need clearer links between learning and performance.

Permanent vs. Contract L&D Hiring: Which Makes More Sense?

Building an L&D team doesn’t mean every capability needs to be a permanent position.

Some work is continuous.

Other needs are tied to specific projects, implementations, or temporary increases in demand.

A blended staffing model can help organizations build capacity without committing to every future-state role immediately.

When permanent hiring makes sense

Permanent roles are often appropriate when the organization needs sustained ownership of learning strategy, stakeholder relationships, operational processes, or ongoing program development.

For example, a growing organization with continuous onboarding and development needs may benefit from an internal instructional designer who builds deep knowledge of its people and systems.

When contract hiring makes sense

Contract talent can be particularly useful when:

• You’re implementing a new LMS.
• You need additional eLearning development capacity.
• You’re launching a defined learning initiative.
• You require specialized accessibility expertise.
• You’re redesigning a curriculum.
• You need temporary facilitation support.
• You want to test a capability before creating a permanent role.

A contract arrangement still requires clear scope, ownership, timelines, and an appropriate engagement structure.

But it allows organizations to access expertise without treating every project as a permanent headcount requirement.

The best L&D staffing model is often a combination of internal ownership and flexible specialist support.

Remote vs. Onsite Hiring: Consider the Candidate Pool

Where you expect employees to work can significantly affect your hiring options.

Teamed’s job-board data illustrates the difference.

Across 183 roles posted between August 28 and September 19, 2026, remote positions attracted approximately 8–10 times the application volume of onsite roles during their first two weeks.

This measures applications through Teamed’s job board, not the number of qualified candidates or whether employers successfully filled those positions.

It also doesn’t mean every L&D role should be remote.

Facilitation, site-specific training, and some stakeholder-facing responsibilities may require regular in-person work.

But the finding is relevant when building a team from scratch.

If your first hire must be onsite, you may be recruiting from a substantially smaller applicant pool.

Before making onsite presence a requirement, ask:

• Which responsibilities genuinely require in-person work?
• How frequently is onsite attendance necessary?
• Could the role be hybrid?
• Would remote hiring expand access to relevant expertise?
• Are there location, employment, or compliance constraints?

For some roles, flexibility in working arrangements may make it easier to find the capabilities you need.

A Practical L&D Team Structure by Stage

There’s no universal org chart for a growing L&D function.

But this framework can help you identify the next capability to add.

This is a planning framework, not a fixed hiring order.

An organization implementing an LMS may need learning technology expertise before hiring an instructional designer.

A business launching a leadership academy may prioritize facilitation.

A rapidly growing company with hundreds of new employees may need instructional design and onboarding development immediately.

The sequence should follow the work.

How to Scope Your First L&D Hire

Before opening a position, separate the responsibilities into three categories.

Must own

These are the capabilities the person will use consistently and must already possess.

For example, an L&D Manager may need to independently manage stakeholders, establish learning priorities, and oversee program delivery.

Should understand

These are capabilities the person needs enough familiarity with to collaborate effectively.

For example, an L&D leader should understand how LMS reporting works without necessarily being responsible for platform administration.

Specialist support

These are capabilities that may be better handled by a contractor, another employee, a vendor, or a future hire.

For example, a generalist instructional designer may need occasional support with complex Storyline development, video production, or accessibility testing.

This approach creates a clearer job description.

It also helps prevent the organization from hiring someone for a role that combines several full-time jobs.

What Hiring Managers Should Evaluate Beyond Job Titles

L&D job titles aren’t always consistent.

One organization’s Instructional Designer may spend most of their time developing eLearning.

Another may focus on needs analysis, consulting, and curriculum strategy.

A Learning Experience Designer may work primarily in digital learning development, while another may focus on broader learner journeys and experience design.

That makes job titles an incomplete hiring signal.

When evaluating candidates, focus on:

Scope of responsibility

What did the person actually own?

Relevant work samples

Can they demonstrate capabilities required by the role?

Instructional reasoning

Can they explain why they made particular design decisions?

Stakeholder experience

Have they worked with the types of business partners they’ll support?

Technical depth

Do they have the necessary tools and systems expertise?

Adaptability

Can they apply their skills in a new environment?

This is particularly important when hiring your first L&D employee.

You need someone who can operate within the realities of your organization—not simply someone whose previous title matches your job description.

Build Around the Work, Not the Org Chart

The strongest L&D teams aren’t necessarily the biggest.

They’re the teams whose capabilities match the organization’s actual learning needs.

Start by identifying the problems L&D is responsible for solving.

Determine which capabilities need ongoing internal ownership.

Identify where project-based or specialist support makes sense.

Then hire the person who addresses your most important gap.

Teamed’s career data also offers an important reminder: don’t assume leadership capability will emerge automatically from a specialist hire.

If you need someone to establish strategy and lead the function, recruit for that responsibility deliberately.

And if a capability is important but doesn’t justify permanent headcount yet, flexible talent can help you address the need without building the entire future-state team on day one.

Building an L&D team from scratch isn’t about finding the perfect org chart.

It’s about putting the right learning expertise in place at the right time.

Ready to Build Your L&D Team?

Whether you’re hiring your first L&D leader, adding instructional design capacity, or looking for specialist contract support, the right starting point is a clear definition of the work.

Teamed specializes in recruiting and staffing professionals across Learning & Development, instructional design, eLearning, and learning technology.

Explore Teamed’s recruitment and staffing services or connect with our team to discuss the roles your organization needs.