SME · Content Development · Git & GitHub · LearningMate
Technical SME —
Chegg Skills Web Dev Certification
An ongoing content development contract reviewing and validating course design documents for a major web development certification program at Chegg Skills — bringing both technical depth and instructional design judgment to content before it enters production.
The Engagement
Where technical expertise meets instructional design
LearningMate selected me as one of two to three Subject Matter Experts for a web development certification program produced for Chegg Skills — a major workforce learning platform serving working professionals pursuing technical career transitions.
The engagement spans two phases. In Phase 1, I reviewed course design documents — module manifests, scripts, storyboards, assessments, and knowledge checks — as Instructional Designers produced them, before content entered the Rise 360 development pipeline. In Phase 2, I'm moving into the recording stage: producing demo videos of the technical content I reviewed.
The content I'm responsible for covers Git and GitHub — version control fundamentals, branching workflows, pull requests, collaboration patterns, and the Git command-line interface — taught to learners who are new to professional software development workflows.
SME
Subject Matter Expert
LearningMate · Chegg Skills
Git & GitHub · Web Development
Long-term Contract · 20 hrs/week
What I Bring
The dual-lens advantage
Most SMEs bring one thing: deep technical knowledge. They can catch a wrong command or a missing flag. What they often can't do is evaluate whether the content is learnable — whether the sequence makes sense for someone building the skill for the first time, whether the assessment is testing the right concept, or whether the cognitive load is appropriate for that point in the course.
Eight years of instructional experience changes what I look for in a review. When I read a Git module manifest,
I'm simultaneously checking whether git rebase is used correctly in the example and whether introducing rebase before merge conflicts have been covered
is the right sequencing decision.
That dual lens is what makes an SME with instructional design experience more useful than a technical reviewer alone — and it's what I brought to the LearningMate team on this engagement.
Lens 1 — Technical Accuracy
- → Is this Git command syntactically correct?
- → Does this workflow reflect real professional practice?
- → Are edge cases handled or glossed over?
- → Would this example work in a real repository?
Lens 2 — Instructional Design
- → Is the sequence logical for a beginner?
- → Does the knowledge check test the right thing?
- → Is cognitive load appropriate for this stage?
- → Does the example match the learning objective?
The Work
What the review process covers
Each course design document goes through a structured review before it enters the Rise 360 development pipeline.
Module Manifests
Reviewing the high-level content architecture — topic sequence, module scope, prerequisite dependencies, and coverage gaps. Flagging cases where important Git concepts are missing or introduced too early.
Scripts & Storyboards
Validating the technical accuracy of narration scripts and storyboard content — checking commands, output examples, workflow descriptions, and any code shown on screen against real Git behavior.
Assessments & Knowledge Checks
Reviewing quiz questions and knowledge checks for technical accuracy, correct answer validity, and alignment with the learning objective they're intended to assess. Catching questions that test trivia rather than applied understanding.
Instructional Flow
Evaluating whether the content within a lesson builds in a logical sequence — ensuring foundational Git concepts are established before branching, merging, or collaboration workflows are introduced.
Real-World Relevance
Flagging examples and scenarios that don't reflect professional Git practice — ensuring learners are building habits they'll actually use on a team, not patterns that work in isolation but break in collaborative environments.
AI Tool Disclosure
Reviewing any AI-generated content for accuracy, tone, and instructional quality — and disclosing AI tool use to the Instructional Design team as required by the engagement terms.
Phase 2
Moving into production
Phase 2 moves from review into production. I'm now recording the demo videos for the Git and GitHub content I reviewed — screencasts walking learners through real terminal workflows, branching strategies, pull request processes, and collaborative Git patterns.
Recording content you've already reviewed is an unusual advantage: the scripts are already validated, the sequence is already correct, and the examples already reflect how Git is actually used on a team. The recording phase benefits directly from the rigor of the review phase.
This phase also includes voice narration samples and course introduction segments — building the on-camera and on-mic presence that video-based learning requires.
Phase 1 — Complete
Content Review
Module manifests · Scripts · Storyboards · Assessments · Gemini training
Phase 2 — In Progress
Video Recording
Demo recordings · Voice narration · Git workflow screencasts
What's Next
Turning this work into a public artifact
The Chegg Skills certification content is proprietary — it's a paid program and the materials can't be shared publicly. That's standard for client work at this level.
What can be built is a standalone portfolio piece using the same content area: a publicly accessible Rise 360 module on Git and GitHub fundamentals — designed from scratch using a course manifest as the starting point, built to demonstrate the same instructional approach I applied in the review phase.
This would include learning objectives, a structured content arc from Git basics through collaborative workflows, interactive knowledge checks, and embedded demo videos. The result: a demonstrable artifact that shows the depth of the Git and GitHub content work, without reproducing proprietary Chegg Skills materials.
In development
A public Rise 360 module on Git and GitHub fundamentals — coming as the next portfolio piece in this series.
Reflection
What this engagement demonstrates
SME work at this level is the closest thing to customer education that exists outside a SaaS company: you're responsible for the technical accuracy and instructional quality of content that learners will rely on to build real skills. The stakes are the same — if the content is wrong or hard to follow, learners fail, and the platform loses credibility.
Working inside an ID-led production process also sharpened my ability to collaborate across roles — providing feedback that's specific enough to act on without rewriting the ID's work, and escalating questions that require design-level decisions rather than just technical fixes.
Phase 1 also included Gemini training delivered by LearningMate — a structured introduction to building and using Gemini Gems for recurring tasks. That training became the starting point for the Work Smarter with Gemini Rise 360 portfolio piece, which adapts the training for a healthcare organizational context.
6+
months · ongoing
LearningMate · Chegg Skills
Git · GitHub · Version Control
Review · Validation · Production
Interested in working together?
I'm open to remote opportunities in customer education, technical instructional design, and product enablement.