Director of Engineering, Math

Duolingo; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 244,000 - 366,000; Full time

Job summary

Duolingo is seeking a Director of Engineering based in New York, NY to lead initiatives in Math education and develop a strategy for expanding to other subjects. This hybrid role involves guiding a team of engineers in innovative AI-driven content generation while ensuring operational excellence.

Ideal candidates will have a proven track record of leading large engineering teams, developing product strategies, and driving significant business outcomes. Join Duolingo to impact millions of users through educational platforms.

Qualifications

• Experience leading consumer product engineering organizations (30+ engineers).
• Track record of driving measurable impact on business outcomes.
• Ability to influence senior executives in ambiguous situations.

Responsibilities

• Drive product and technical strategy for Math while evaluating new subjects.
• Lead teams to tackle engineering challenges in AI content generation.
• Contribute to hiring decisions and maintain high-performance teams.

Skills

Leadership in consumer product engineering

Product strategy development

High-performance team building

Influencing senior executives

Experiment-driven product development

Job description

About the role

Over the last few years, Duolingo has expanded beyond language learning into entirely new subjects: Math, Music, and Chess. These products reach millions of daily active users, are growing quickly, and represent a CEO-level bet that Duolingo can become a platform for learning anything.

We're looking for a Director of Engineering to help lead Math and scale our teaching method to Physics, Chemistry, and more. This role is for a builder. You will take on creating math education at scale, leveraging a world-class engineering team and AI-driven content generation system. You'll make decisions about which school subjects to invest in, how to allocate engineering resources across bets at different stages, where to continue investing and where to pivot. You will partner closely with Product and Design to shape the future of the product while building the organization that delivers it.

This role is based in our New York, NY office on a hybrid (4+1) work schedule.

You will

• Drive the product and technical strategy for Math, balancing short-term product impact with long-term strategic goals.
• Partner strategically with Product, Design, Learning and AI to evolve our strategy, including decisions on when and how to expand to additional subjects.
• Lead multiple fast-moving engineering leaders and their teams as they tackle some of the most interesting technical challenges in industry, including AI content generation and AI tutoring.
• Lead an organization that moves quickly, runs high-quality experiments, and translates product insights into measurable business impact.
• Build and develop a strong leadership bench capable of bringing ambitious new products to market.
• Drive operational excellence across Duolingo's engineering org, including reliability, performance, developer productivity, and efficient execution at scale.
• Contribute to Duolingo's engineering hiring bar and talent systems, playing a central role in hiring decisions, leveling, and organizational design to maintain a high-performance, high-density team.

You have

• Experience leading consumer product engineering organizations (30+ engineers), ideally across multiple high growth product experiences.
• Product instincts and experience partnering closely with product leadership to define strategy, not just execute against it.
• A track record of driving measurable impact on business outcomes, including growing early product development through significant company scale.
• Experience building or scaling LLM-powered product features, with a strong interest in building engineering cultures that embrace new technologies.
• Deep experience building and scaling high-velocity, experiment-driven product organizations.
• A track record of building high-performance, inclusive teams, and making thoughtful, high-judgment talent decisions.
• Ability to influence senior executives and drive clarity in ambiguous, cross-functional situations.
• Ability to work from our New York, NY office on a 4+1 hybrid work schedule.

Salary Range

$244,000—$366,000 USD

Benefits

Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits.

Accommodations

We will do everything we can within reason to make sure that your interview takes place in an environment that fairly and accurately assesses your skills. If you need assistance or accommodation, please contact [e-mail].

Equal Employment Opportunity

Duolingo is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.