Who We Are

NWEA® is a division of HMH that supports students and educators through research, assessment solutions, policy and advocacy services, professional learning and school improvement services that fight for equity, drive classroom impact and push for systemic change in our educational communities. For nearly 50 years, NWEA has developed innovative pre-K–12 assessments, including their flagship interim assessment, MAP® Growth™ and their reading fluency and comprehension assessment, MAP® Reading Fluency™. For more information, visit NWEA.org to learn more.

What You’ll Do 

As a Senior Assessment Designer, you will lead the development of assessment content in a specialized subject area such as ELA. Your role includes executing departmental processes, ensuring adherence to work plans, and monitoring progress. You will demonstrate advanced expertise across all phases of test development, including item creation, content review, test assembly, evaluation, committee facilitation, and scoring. In addition to performing the full scope of responsibilities expected of an Assessment Designer, you will also provide content-area leadership, conduct senior-level reviews, deliver training, coordinate project activities, and approve key development deliverables.

Responsibilities

Development Expertise and Assessment Quality

• Develop Assessment Materials: Create and maintain high-quality assessment items/passages in accordance with assessment program needs, including supporting the development of items through their entire life cycle. This includes but is not limited to aligning content to standards/frameworks/resources/etc.; providing  reviews of item/passage sets against checklists, specifications, and style guides;  Contributes to the development of item specifications and process documentation, design of test blueprints, and evaluation of passage or item bank inventories.
• Provides Subject Matter Expertise: Serve as a subject matter expert in content area(s) & assessments when collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, including facilitating meetings and other collaborative efforts with partners. Help lead in training vendors, item writers, and educators to develop and review items/passages in accordance with HMH item development best practices.
• Supports Program and/or Product Management: Consults with program management on issues and concerns with projects, as appropriate, attending relevant meetings and tracking progress.
• Apply research-based practice: Contribute to the development of new test designs, item and test prototypes, and other innovative assessment ideas.

Project Management 

• Administration of Projects: Support the facilitation of project launch meetings. Lead some or all portions of development-specific project meetings.
• Promoting Efficiencies: Generate ideas for improving processes and procedures
• Tracking: Help ensure required tasks are completed on schedule and within budget, such that the project adheres to all financial, legal, and organizational requirements. Communication: Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to understand and communicate decisions and impacts, progress, etc. 
• Supports Scrum Work: Collaborate with other teams to ensure that scrum methodology is enabling successful work across the division, staffing large-scale assessment work as well as content connections work to the wider HMH organization.

Leadership

• Coaching: Present informational or professional development workshops relevant to staff, and help lead in the training and mentoring of new and existing staff
• Job Expectations: Develop and communicate expertise of development-related tools, software, and/or processes
• Change Implementation Enacts change within projects, ensuring that direction is carried out. Reports back to manager if any additional intervention is needed.  

What You’ll Need:

• 3 combined years of subject-area teaching experience and experience as a test development specialist.
• Subject-matter content expertise.
• Expertise in industry standards for assessment quality, especially in technical requirements for items and tests.
• Expertise in assessment development processes for custom and shelf products.
• Working understanding of research design, data analysis, psychometric concepts, and measurement principles.
• Ability to collaborate extensively with peers to accomplish goals
• Experience in instructional design and delivery training.
• Ability to develop creative solutions to solve resource and schedule challenges.

Education: BS or BA in relevant field (e.g., English Language Arts, Education).

• Preferred: MS or MA in relevant field (e.g., ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, and/or Education). 
• Minimum of 5 years of K-12 classroom teaching experience.
• Minimum of 3 years educational assessment experience.

Salary range:  85k – 95k

Application Deadline: 

The application window for this position is anticipated to close on November 8, 2025. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. The posting may be available past this date but is not guaranteed. 

The Information Technology organization is transforming to realize our mission: Become a leader in HMH’s digital transformation, and as a strategic partner, innovate and deliver highest value, competitive advantage solutions across all corporate and business functions. Our ambition is to be a digital leader through innovation and develop and deliver leading edge technology such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence to solve some of HMH’s greatest operational business challenges. Our professionals will have business relevant skills to connect our HMH partners to technologies that propel the businesses to deliver the greatest value for HMH and our customers.

We are building a team of IT professionals with an insatiable appetite to learn, a relentless focus on customer service, a technological curiosity toward future possibilities, and a creativity in solving business challenges with leading technologies. Our team will find ways to work together, create a sense of community where it’s safe to take risks and learn together, develop our careers, and all have an opportunity to work on new technologies. We will work together, learn together and have fun together. As a team, we will lead HMH’s digital transformation.