Software Engineering Director, Duolingo
Music
$295-426k
+ Equity
Language education platform
Job no longer available
Language education platform
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$295-426k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
Duolingo's mission is to give everyone access to a private tutor experience through technology, making learning fun and providing universal access to language education.
Role
Who you are
- Essential to the role is the ability to effectively handle complex leadership situations, ensuring alignment and delivering impact
- Strong technical chops. This is table-stakes. Our engineering leads are not only excellent people managers, team builders and strategic thinkers
- They also have the deep technical background which allows them to “trust, but verify” that the right technical decisions are being made and that their area is executing strongly
- They allocate time for learning in order to stay on top of technical advances
- Strong business acumen. This means having a deep understanding of their part of the business; following industry trends; and being able to think several years ahead
- Solid product sense. Engineering leads at Duolingo don’t “stay in their lane.” They use the product and features that they are building every day, are deeply familiar with how it works and have strong opinions of what’s working well in the product, what could be improved, and what to build next
- They also use products/apps from peer industries (gaming, for instance) to learn from best-in-class
What the job involves
- As an Engineering Director at Duolingo, you'll have the unique opportunity to shape the future of learning by leading cross-functional teams in developing innovative solutions
- This role combines strategic leadership, business insight, and technical knowledge
- We recently launched Duolingo’s first Music course and the team is shipping features and technology to teach more topics (like instruments!) and make the course even more fun (through gamification and song play)
- Our goal is to grow our Music course to be as successful as the courses that teach the world language on Duolingo today
- This is a 0 to 1 initiative within one of our newest and rapidly growing areas!
- Define the strategy and set the roadmap for your teams
- Be a strong cross-functional partner with product, design and data science (and other functions, depending on the product area) and invest in those relationships
- Be an excellent manager of managers, training and coaching newer managers and engineering leads
- Navigate complex leadership skills of being inclusive of different viewpoints; checking for alignment; and knowing when it’s best to pushback vs. make a decision vs. “disagree and commit.”
- Shape key decisions about architecture and implementation of scalable and high quality engineering solutions
- Drive the planning, execution, and success of elegant technical projects
Our take
Duolingo is a free to use language learning app, offering 95 courses across 38 distinct languages. It is the most downloaded education app in the history of the App Store and has previously been awarded Apple's iPhone App of the Year and Android's Best of the Best.
With over 500 million learners, the company has unprecedented data insights on how people learn. Its team of language learning scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI experts use this data to constantly improve its effectiveness.
Alongside language courses, the company has created the Duolingo English Test which is an affordable and convenient language certification option accepted by more than 2,000 universities and institutions worldwide. Since its 2021 IPO, Duolingo has shown strong momentum and regular changes to the app have brought increased user engagement, retention, and stronger conversion.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Few candidates hear
back within 2 weeks
54% female employees
15% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Nov 2020
$35m
LATE VC
Apr 2020
$10m
LATE VC
Total funding: $183.3m
Company benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision for employees as well as eligible partners and dependents
- Mental health benefits such as therapy sessions and coaching to support you to be your best self
- Fertility benefits to support your family planning journey
- Fully paid parental and adoption leave
- Fully paid subscription to Care.com and paid backup days for dependents and your fur family
- 401(k) with generous match and immediate vesting
- 20 days of paid time off, with two additional weeks off for winter break
- First-time home buyer bonus (in Pittsburgh)
- Competitive salaries and equity
- Yearly stipend for professional development
- Transportation reimbursement for however you get to work
- Lunch prepared daily by our in-house chefs
- Annual international retreat for all full-time employees
- Monthly events celebrating our team and their amazing work
- On-site gym and massages
- Game room for taking brain breaks
Company values
- Learners First - Our mission and reason for existing is to make sure everyone in the world has access to high-quality education
- Take The Long View - If it works in the short-term but hurts Duolingo in the long-term, it's not right. We make decisions that keep us moving toward our big goals
- Prioritize Ruthlessly - We have millions of learners and only hundreds of employees, so our work must focus on initiatives that have high return on investment. Make your time matter
- Ship It - For a good idea to become reality, it needs a plan and a sense of urgency. So go go go!
- Test Everything - We measure and test everything so we can make informed decisions based on data
- We Haven’t Won Yet - Until every person who wants to learn is doing so with Duolingo, we need to keep innovating, pushing the envelope, and learning ways to get better
- Strive For Excellence - To change how the world learns, we must do world-class work. From the people we hire to the features we ship, we never settle for just okay
- All For One, One For All - We stay engaged and make choices that benefit the greater good-because Duolingo's success is our success
- Be Candid And Kind - We build things together with transparency and care for each other. We offer feedback compassionately but with excellence in mind, and receive it openly and as an opportunity to grow
Company HQ
East Liberty, Pittsburgh, PA
Articles
Leadership
Luis von Ahn
(CEO)Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and founder of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA sold to Google.
Severin Hacker
(CTO)PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
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