Senior Engineering Manager (Product)

Duolingo; York and North Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 134,000 - 179,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision for self &

Mental health benefits

Fertility benefits

Parental leave

401(k) with generous match

Paid time off

Annual international retreat

Lunch prepared daily

On-site gym

Equity

Job summary

Duolingo in the United States seeks a Senior Engineering Manager to lead the Short Form Experience Team, guiding a 7-engineer group to ship engaging bite-sized lessons that boost learner engagement. You’ll own the team roadmap, drive execution from specs to production, and partner with product, design, and data science to run experiments influencing key metrics.

You’ll foster an inclusive, high-performance culture, refine engineering standards, and mentor engineers while aligning strategy with

Qualifications

• Experience leading multi-engineer teams to ship consumer software.
• Strong product instincts and data-driven decision making.
• Excellent communication across engineering, product, design, and data.
• Ability to define OKRs and operating cadences.
• Track record delivering measurable business impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead a 7-engineer team to build core Short Form Experience features.
• Own team roadmap, execution, and outcomes from spec to impact.
• Partner with PM, design, and data science to run experiments.
• Maintain high performance, reliability, and observability.
• Foster inclusive culture and career development.

Skills

People management

Technical leadership

Product strategy

Cross-functional collaboration

Data-driven decision making

AB testing & analytics

Job description

• We’re hiring a Senior Engineering Manager to lead a high-impact product engineering team focused on user growth
• You will co-lead a cross-functional team to improve learner habit formation and long-term engagement through a variety of features, while owning the team’s roadmap, execution, and outcomes
• This role blends technical leadership, people management, and product strategy as you’ll set direction for complex systems, foster an inclusive, high-performance culture, and create an environment for engineers to do impactful things
• The role is based in Pittsburgh or New York
• As an engineering manager and team lead of the Short Form Experience Team, you’ll manage a team of 7 engineers to build features that make up the core of the learning experience on Duolingo
• Our short-form lessons are where learners spend the majority of their time on the app, and this team’s mission is to make these sessions more effective and engaging
• Your team will work on adding new exercises that support our learners in practicing skills like recall and production in bite‑sized formats, as well as creating other ways to help learners build foundational skills in a new language
• The Monetization Pillar focuses on Duolingo’s key business drivers—subscriptions, ads, and in‑app purchases
• Our goal is to build the best premium experiences for our learners while ensuring the sustainability and success of our business model
• You will play an instrumental role in the strategic direction of Duolingo by developing and refining the methods that make our monetization efforts more effective and efficient
• Co‑lead a cross‑functional team with partners in product management, aligning on strategy, priorities, and success metrics for features that drive meaningful user impact
• Drive execution of projects from spec to implementation, experimentation/analysis, and ongoing ownership, while ensuring infrastructure reliability, scalability, and observability
• Use data and rapid experimentation to inform decisions; partner with internal stakeholders to design A/B tests and translate insights into product improvements that measurably impact key product KPIs
• Attract, grow, and retain diverse engineering talent; provide clear expectations, coaching, and career development, and build a healthy, inclusive team culture
• Set engineering quality standards and processes that balance speed and long‑term maintainability; proactively manage tech debt, product quality, and operational excellence
• Collaborate closely with product, design, research, and other engineering teams to deliver user experiences that serve user needs while being impactful towards business metrics
• Define team OKRs, ruthlessly prioritize, and remove roadblocks to enable teams to do their best work

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 furry 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

We’re looking for managers who are passionate about improving how we teach while leading engineers in a highly cross‑functional team!We’re seeking engineering leaders who are passionate about bottom‑line business impact, and who bring fresh insights and a creative technical approachThe ability to work from or relocate to Pittsburgh, PA or New York, NYA track record of shipping multi‑engineer, multi‑week+ projects with measurable business impact, balancing speed and qualityStrong product instincts and comfort in highly experimental, data‑driven environments; experience defining metrics and running A/B tests with analytics or data science partnersExcellent communication and stakeholder management skills across engineering, product, design, and data; clear written specs and status updatesExperience leading, managing, and building a team of software engineers, with demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and retain talentTechnical depth sufficient to guide architecture and implementation trade‑offs, evolve quality standards, and mentor engineers on best practicesExperience leading cross‑functional teams focused on driving core product outcomes in consumer productsExperience setting team OKRs and operating cadences that consistently deliver outsized impact on company‑level metricsBackground dealing with ambiguity and managing teams or projects with broad cross‑functional scope