Senior Director, AP Assessment Design and Insights
College Board – AP&I
Location: This is a remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes.
Role Type: This is a full-time position
About the Team
The College Board’s Advanced Placement and Instruction division (300+ staff) develops and administers coursework taken by more than 3 million students worldwide each school year, and the related subject-matter exams utilized by more than 4,000 colleges and universities for course placement and awarding of college credit. These include credit and placement examination programs like CLEP and ACCUplacer; Advanced Placement (AP) and Pre-AP courses in 40+ disciplines; and associated teacher professional learning programs.
To support the continued growth and evolution of the program, the AP Program Enablement team is designed to oversee the end-to-end management of the AP Course Roadmap, as well as the assessment design and systems requirements, processes and production functions that underpin all new and existing AP courses and exams. This team plays a central role in ensuring alignment, quality, and efficiency across the full lifecycle of course and assessment production.
Within AP Program Enablement, the AP Assessment Design & Systems team functions as the cross-cutting backbone accountable for the assessment design, systems, and requirements making “build to score and report” possible across all AP courses and exams. Assessment Design & Systems governs the end-to-end integration across the full platform ecosystem, assessment design and requirements, the integrity and certification layer, and the knowledge and data governance, serving as the connective tissue other Program Enablement functions rely on to operate as one coherent system. This scope spans all 40+ existing AP courses and new courses in active development and underpins the program’s digital transformation and strategic priorities.
About the Opportunity
As Senior Director, AP Assessment Design and Insights, you will serve as a senior strategic leader and analytical engine within the AP Assessment Design & Systems team within AP Program Enablement, driving the assessment design infrastructure, systems strategy, and knowledge architecture that underpin AP’s assessment work across existing courses and a growing portfolio of new course development. This role sits at the intersection of assessment design, data-informed strategy, and cross-functional leadership, and is essential to ensuring that AP’s assessment design, systems, and resources are coherent, current, and positioned for the program’s long-term evolution.
You will lead and advance AP's assessment design infrastructure, from intake frameworks for new and revised courses to the team's assessment resources, knowledge base, and systems roadmap, working in close partnership with the Executive Director, who sets the strategic direction for the team. You will serve as an authoritative voice on assessment design standards and requirements across the AP ecosystem, a trusted partner to technology and product teams, and the primary driver of the divisional AP Assessment Community of Practice. This is an ideal role for a senior assessment leader who combines deep expertise in educational assessment with the strategic and analytical capabilities to advance a complex, high-stakes program at scale.
In this Role, You Will:
Lead Assessment Systems Strategy and Resources (40%)
- Lead execution of AP's assessment systems roadmap strategy in close partnership with the Executive Director, ensuring it accurately reflects assessment requirements and priorities across current and new course portfolios and advances AP's broader digital transformation goals.
- Drive annual execution and maintenance of the AP digital assessment inventory, scoping exam requirements across systems for upcoming administration years and ensuring alignment with the AP digital assessment roadmap and College Board strategic priorities.
- Lead the design and architecture of the AP Assessment Design & Systems SharePoint environment, ensuring assessment resources, tools, and documentation are organized in a manner that is intuitive, navigable, and current.
- Serve as a primary voice in systems and digital roadmap discussions with AP product and technology teams, ensuring assessment strategic priorities, requirements and dependencies are accurately represented and tracked across the ecosystem.
- Translate complex assessment systems data into clear, actionable insights for the Executive Director and senior leadership through data visualizations, executive reporting, and strategic presentation materials.
- Apply knowledge of assessment industry standards, interoperability protocols, accessibility requirements, and generative AI tools to strengthen AP assessment systems requirements and position the program for continued digital evolution.
Lead Assessment Design Strategy and Resources (40%)
- Develop and own the assessment design intake framework for new and revised AP courses, establishing a structured process and assets that guide course teams through the full arc of assessment development from inception through exam production.
- Own the development and stewardship of AP’s assessment design knowledge base, including assessment principles and best practices, item design guidance, item and form development, form assembly standards, psychometric and validity standards, fairness frameworks, and resources that support both current and new course teams and that apply throughout the item and form development lifecycle.
- Partner with the Executive Director and Psychometrics to guide and implement multi-year test form planning, ensuring AP’s form strategy supports validity, equity, and psychometric soundness across all subjects.
- Serve as a strategic thought partner to the Executive Director on assessment design priorities, flagging risks and dependencies across new and existing course pipelines and recommending solutions.
- Support the integration of innovative item design elements and emerging assessment practices into AP’s assessment resource infrastructure, ensuring the program remains at the leading edge of educational assessment design and digital assessment.
Lead the Divisional AP Assessment Community of Practice (20%)
- Lead the AP Assessment community of practice at a divisional level, setting the strategic agenda for sessions and ensuring the community functions as a high-value, cross-collaborative professional learning forum.
- Own speaker outreach and engagement, identifying, cultivating, and coordinating internal and external subject matter experts whose expertise aligns with strategic priorities.
- Collaborate with the Executive Director to ensure Community of Practice sessions address timely, relevant, and high-impact assessment topics, including psychometrics, fairness, digital assessment, innovative design, assessment systems, and generative AI.
- Serve as the primary logistics and execution partner for the AP Assessment Community of Practice, including end-to-end event logistics, session asset quality, and an ongoing archive of sessions and resources to support the community’s growth as a division-wide, cross-collaborative forum.
About You
- 8+ years of progressive leadership experience in assessment design, test development, or assessment systems.
- Deep expertise in educational assessment design, including how assessments are built, validated, and delivered at scale, and fluency in the psychometric, fairness, and design principles that underpin high-quality, large-scale exams.
- Demonstrated ability to lead strategic initiatives across assessment design, systems, and knowledge management, and to translate complex assessment and technical requirements into clear, actionable direction for diverse partners.
- Proven ability to lead cross-functional conversations and drive alignment across diverse stakeholders, including product, technology, psychometrics, and curriculum and assessment teams, with the intelligence, nuance, and persuasion to move complex, multi-party work forward without direct authority.
- Strong analytical and communication skills, with experience synthesizing complex data and assessment information into executive-level insights, visualizations, and presentations.
- Fluency in industry-standard assessment design conventions and data structures, including blueprints, test and form constraints, item pools, and scoring specifications, with the ability to engage substantively in requirements discussions with technology and product partners.
- Knowledge of assessment content standards and interoperability protocols, such as QTI, APIP, HTML, WCAG, and metadata schemas, sufficient to inform AP assessment systems requirements and evaluate technical options; familiarity with item data protocols including JSON, programming languages such as Python or SAS, and accessibility frameworks is a plus.
- Strong proficiency in SharePoint, Smartsheet, and PowerPoint, with demonstrated experience building data visualizations and executive-level reporting artifacts.
- Proficiency with the Microsoft 365 suite and familiarity with collaboration and work management platforms such as Productboard, Jira, and Confluence.
All Roles at College Board Require:
- A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work.
- Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions.
- Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal.
- A learner’s mindset and commitment to growth through feedback and collaboration.
- A drive for impact and excellence through data-informed decisions and continuous improvement.
- A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success
- Authorization to work in the United States
About Our Process
- Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
- While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.
What We Offer
At College Board, we offer more than a paycheck, we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.
