Regional People Lead, Duolingo
EMEA
£124.4-186.6k
Base salary is supplemented by equity compensation
Language education platform
Be an early applicant
Language education platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
£124.4-186.6k
Base salary is supplemented by equity compensation
1001+ employees
Company mission
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
- Experience in HR, People Business Partnering, or regional People operations, including work supporting multi-country teams across EMEA
- Hands-on experience managing employees through a PEO or EOR provider (e.g. Globalization Partners) across multiple EMEA markets
- Strong knowledge of European employment practices, labor law, and compliance across multiple jurisdictions, including the UK and Germany
- Demonstrated ability to move seamlessly between strategic advising and hands-on operational execution
- Experience scaling People operations and processes in a fast-growing, distributed environment
- Sound judgment owning complex employee relations and higher-risk people matters, grounded in employment law
- A collaborative partner to Finance on budgets, vendor management, and reporting
- Strong cross-cultural communication and the judgment to know when to escalate, when to decide, and when to bring the global team in
- Fluency across core People and HRIS systems, with the rigor to keep data accurate between global platforms and local source documents
What the job involves
- We're looking for a Regional People Lead to serve as both a senior People Business Partner and the operational owner for our growing EMEA presence
- Based in London, you'll bridge global strategy and local execution: delivering sharp counsel to regional leaders while keeping compliance, operations, and the employee experience running seamlessly
- Navigating a mix of direct entities and PEO-supported markets, you're as comfortable handling multi-country compliance as you are advising leaders
- Reporting to the Head of Talent Management and Rewards (TMR), you will lead and develop a People Operations Manager, champion the EMEA region in global planning, and ensure local nuance actively shapes our global strategy
- Strategic Partnership:
- Serve as the senior People Partner to EMEA leaders, building deep business understanding and advising on org design, performance, team health, and growth
- Lead engagement, inclusion, and talent planning initiatives across the region, and drive talent density in partnership with TA
- Guide leaders and teams through organizational change, translating global OKRs and TMR programs into plans that fit regional context and surfacing gaps back to TMR
- Own complex employee relations and higher-risk people matters across the region, including investigations, grievances, performance and disciplinary processes, and settlement agreements, applying employment-law judgment and knowing when to bring in Legal or the central team
- Use people data and engagement insight to spot organizational health trends early and recommend action
- Regional Operations & Compliance:
- Own regional People operations end to end, leading a People Operations Manager who delivers day-to-day execution across direct entities and PEO-supported markets, while staying close enough to the detail to catch compliance and payroll risk yourself
- Own the regional PEO/EOR relationship (currently Globalization Partners), including monthly payroll submissions across multiple calendars, employment changes, terminations, new-country implementation, and vendor management across PEO-supported markets
- Act as the regional authority on employment compliance across direct and PEO markets, including UK Right to Work, UK and German contract and employment-law requirements, and country-specific PEO frameworks; ensure local legal review where required
- Serve as the regional execution layer for centrally-owned systems (such as Workday), validating data against source documents and ensuring global processes function correctly in local practice
- Serve as regional liaison to Finance on budgets, vendor contracts, expense management, and reporting, maintaining strong internal controls and documentation
- Identify repetitive regional processes and improve them through better workflow and automation where appropriate, reducing cross-time-zone friction without compromising local compliance judgment
- Recruiting & Workplace Experience:
- Partner with Talent Acquisition on regional hiring strategy, offer decisions, and locally relevant onboarding
- Partner with London workplace operations on facilities, safety, and vendor management, and lead regional events and programming
- Ensure a strong employee experience across hybrid and remote environments regionwide, providing a consistent point of contact through the employee lifecycle
- Global Representation:
- Represent EMEA in global People forums and planning cycles, ensuring regional voice shapes global policy rather than just receiving it
- Bring clarity and consistent ownership to how global People processes land locally
Application process
- Talent Matching reviews your resume and responses to application questions to determine the extent to which your qualifications match the job requirements selected for this role
- These requirements and their desired weighting are established by our recruiters in collaboration with hiring managers
- All Talent Matching output is reviewed by our recruiting and hiring teams, who make the final decision on each application
- Talent Matching does not automatically disposition any candidate or make hiring decisions
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Duolingo is a free to use language learning app, offering 100+ courses in more than 40 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 registered users, 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
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 HQ
East Liberty, Pittsburgh, PA
Leadership
Luis von Ahn
(CEO & Co-founder)Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and founder of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA sold to Google.
Severin Hacker
(CTO & Co-founder)PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
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