Educational engineer: a profession that has become essential in any organization implementing teaching or professional training programs. Working for both private companies and universities, this training engineering specialist is responsible for a key mission: the design of learning systems that meet specific educational objectives and are adapted to the learners’ profiles.
To achieve this, the educational engineer positions themselves as both a project manager (they often lead an educational team) and a technician, through their mastery of educational platforms and technological tools for creating content. It is relevant to describe this professional as the architect of educational projects, which they take charge of from their design to their deployment.
Rise offers you a complete presentation of the profession of educational engineer, a profession that still lacks visibility but which is called upon to play an increasingly important role in organizations.
What is an educational engineer or educational manager?
Educational engineer, educational manager, educational engineer manager, educational engineering manager: four titles for the same job. This professional is the cornerstone of the company’s training department or the educational department of a training organization or higher education institution. At the heart of the position: the development of training systems aimed at maximizing learner engagement and meeting the organization’s needs
The advent of distance learning has led educational engineers to develop expertise in digital learning. They support clients or internal HR departments with their educational strategy. They then translate the objectives into concrete learning content.
The educational manager finds himself at a crossroads, between creating teaching programs and leading a teaching team of trainers.
Definition of educational engineering
Logically, the educational engineer is above all a specialist in educational engineering. What exactly is it? Educational engineering is a component of training engineering. It refers to the design of teaching or training systems. The approach is methodical and takes into account all dimensions: technical, economic, financial, and social, which are added to the educational component. The latter includes the following elements: target audience, methods and tools adapted to skills development, definition of units of time (synchronous or asynchronous training), location (face-to-face or distance), a nd action (individualized or collective training).
Specialized professions include learning, educational engineer, and multimedia educational engineer
The educational engineer is increasingly often called upon to work, at least in part, on digital training.
The rapid evolution of the sector, with the proliferation of e-learning tools (LMS, authoring tools, etc.) and numerous innovations in teaching methods, has led to the emergence of more specialized professions. The e-learning educational engineer, also called a digital learning educational engineer or multimedia educational engineer, deploys their expertise solely in the field of online learning. Some educational managers are developing even more specialized skills. Professions such as serious game educational engineer and virtual reality educational engineer have thus emerged.
Where does an educational engineer work?
The educational engineer works in several types of structures:
- Large companies, SMEs, VSEs.
- Training organizations.
- Universities, private schools, and other educational institutions.
- Other public establishments, for example, chambers of commerce and industry (CCI), and local authorities.
Any structure with a teaching team or dedicated to professional training is likely to hire the services of an educational engineer.
Large organizations often employ several educational managers. The scope of each position is therefore defined by a specialization. This is done either by profession or area of knowledge (“health educational engineer”, “electrical maintenance educational engineer”) or by training method, as we have seen (“digital learning educational engineer”, for example).
Furthermore, employment can vary depending on the type of organization. For example, an educational engineer working in a university is generally involved in teacher management (recruitment, monitoring). When working for a human resources consulting firm or a training center, they are often required to handle calls for tenders in the context of public procurement (drafting response files).
What is the average salary of an educational engineer?
The average salary for an educational engineer is around €3,000 per month. There is a very wide range between the remuneration of a junior profile and an experienced educational engineer. Thus, for a first job, the salary generally does not exceed €2,000 per month, while an expert with several years of experience can expect to earn more than €4,000 per month.
What does an educational engineer do what are their missions?
The main mission of an educational engineer is the design of training programs. This includes analyzing needs, defining objectives and a learning scenario, choosing appropriate methods, creating teaching materials, developing assessment methods, and promoting the program.
Project management is also one of the responsibilities of the educational manager. In this role, they develop the specifications for the training program, optimize available resources and the time required to complete the various stages, lead a project team, and monitor its progress.
In addition, the educational engineer trains the stakeholders (trainers, teachers) in the tools and methods used in the educational system. He or she also works with learners to assess their satisfaction.
Finally, this profession requires constant monitoring in order to follow innovations in the training and education sector: digitalization, introduction of artificial intelligence, etc.
