Learning & AI Enablement Strategist

Liam
Hawkyard

I build things that help people learn in environments that never stop changing. AI pipelines, interactive simulations, learning systems — designed from first principles, not templates.

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Liam Hawkyard

Curious by design

I'm a learning and performance strategist who does their best work when the problem doesn't have a name yet. I take ambiguous, complex challenges — a workforce that needs to change faster than traditional training allows, a performance gap nobody has properly diagnosed — and turn them into structured, scalable solutions.

My background is instructional design, built on a Master's in Instructional Technologies from SF State and an undergraduate foundation in Psychology — which turns out to be a useful combination when your job is figuring out why people do what they do and designing experiences that actually change behavior. My focus now is on what's next: AI-powered tools, automated pipelines, and learning systems that don't exist yet but should. I build them, own them, and can explain exactly how they work.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Supervised at home by two three-legged cats with strong opinions about keyboard placement.

Currently
Open to senior L&D, AI Enablement, and Learning Ecosystem Architecture roles. Actively building a public portfolio of AI-powered learning tools.
Approach
Start from the learner's reality. Design for behaviour change, not content delivery. Measure what actually matters. Iterate until it's right.
Philosophy
I do my best work when I have room to explore — collaborating with the people closest to the problem to figure out what's actually going on, then building something that genuinely fixes it. I'm a pragmatist. The intervention that works beats the flashy one that looks good on paper every time.
Ideal role
Think Mary Poppins, but for L&D. Fly in, diagnose the real problem, build something that works, leave the team better than I found it, then find the next team that needs help. I'm drawn to organisations where the work is genuinely hard and the problems haven't been solved yet.

Things I've built

AI Pipeline · Assessment Design

Assessment Launch Pad

An automated pipeline that ingests source material — spreadsheets, documents, or web content — and uses the Claude API to generate assessment questions, distractors, and targeted feedback. Assessment creation as a repeatable, scalable system. Not a manual task.

Details →
Prototyping · Figma · Claude Code

VoltNexus Content Moderation Tool Interface

A high-fidelity prototype of a fictitious T&S moderation console — wireframed in Figma, built with Claude Code. Designed to give the moderation sandbox the visual authenticity of a real product.

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Making the complex clear

Before AI pipelines and interactive simulations, the core skill was the same: take something complicated and find the format that makes it land. These earlier pieces show that foundation.

Data Visualization · Adobe Illustrator

Get Out and Hike

Get Out and Hike infographic

A health and wellness infographic communicating the physical, social, and practical benefits of hiking — including a calorie comparison across activities. Silhouette figures created using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Designed to be scannable at a glance and detailed enough to reward a closer read.

Organizational Communication · Adobe Illustrator

Office of Diversity — Who Are We?

Office of Diversity infographic showing two connected departments at CSU East Bay

Two departments, one infographic. This piece maps the structure and services of CSU East Bay's Office of Diversity and the Diversity Inclusion Student Center — making the relationship between the two legible without turning it into an org chart. Central silhouette built with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

What I bring

AI-Powered Learning Systems
Building pipelines that use LLMs to generate, evaluate, and personalise learning at scale. Claude API, prompt engineering, automated feedback loops.
🗺
Learning Ecosystem Architecture
Designing the full stack — LMS, authoring tools, data layers, integrations — so the pieces work together instead of just coexisting.
🎮
Interactive Simulations
Scenario-based learning with real branching logic, AI game masters, and consequence modeling. Environments that demand active thinking, not passive clicking.
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Instructional Design
Adult learning principles applied to real constraints. SCORM, xAPI, curriculum architecture, assessment design. The craft underneath the technology.
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Change Enablement
Different stakeholders have different motivations, timelines, and resistance profiles. Designing adoption strategies that account for all of them.
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Learning Analytics
Defining what to measure, building the infrastructure to capture it, translating data into decisions that improve programs over time.

Where I've been

2021 — 2026
Learning & AI Enablement Strategist
Meta

Built AI-powered learning pipelines, SCORM packages, and interactive simulations at scale inside one of the fastest-moving organisations on the planet. Designed learning ecosystems for workforces in constant transformation.

Led programs spanning curriculum architecture, AI integration, and change enablement — always with a focus on closing the gap between what people know and what they actually need to do.

2021
M.Ed. — Instructional Technologies
San Francisco State University
Research focused on technology-mediated learning environments and instructional systems design.
2016
B.A. — Psychology
CSU East Bay
Foundation in human behaviour, cognition, and motivation — still the most useful thing I've ever studied for a career in learning design.

Let's talk about the work

I'm open to senior L&D, AI Enablement, and Learning Architecture roles. If you're building something that involves humans learning difficult things in complicated environments, I'm probably interested.

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