Senior Engineering Manager, Product

Drive Capital; Pennsylvania; On-site; USD 204,000 - 306,000; Full time

Job summary

Duolingo is seeking an Engineering Manager for the Language Learning pillar to lead a high‑impact team of engineers shaping the core learning experiences. You’ll guide cross‑functional initiatives at the intersection of engineering, product, and pedagogy, helping learners build foundational skills worldwide.

You’ll hire, coach, and retain talent; define OKRs; ensure quality, scalability, and observability; and partner with design, research, data science, and product to deliver data‑driven

Qualifications

• Experience leading software engineering teams with hiring and retention.
• Track record shipping multi-engineer projects with measurable impact.
• Strong product instincts and data-driven experimentation with metrics and A/B tests.
• Excellent communication with stakeholders across engineering, product, design, and data.
• Technical depth to guide architecture and mentor engineers.

Responsibilities

• Co-lead a cross-functional team with partners in product management to align on strategy and success metrics.
• Drive project execution from spec to deployment, experimentation/analysis, and ongoing ownership.
• Use data and rapid experimentation to inform decisions and improve KPIs.
• Attract, grow, and retain diverse engineering talent with coaching and career development.
• Set engineering quality standards and balance speed with maintainability; manage tech debt and reliability.
• Collaborate with product, design, research, and other teams to deliver user experiences aligned with business metrics.
• Define team OKRs and remove roadblocks to enable teams to do their best work.

Skills

Team leadership

Hiring and mentoring

Data-driven decision making

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical judgment

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. It’s a big mission, and that’s where you come in!

At Duolingo, you’ll join a team that cares about finding innovative solutions to complex technical problems, running countless experiments (300+ at a time!) with our massive user base to make data-driven decisions, and educating our users and employees alike. You’ll have limitless learning opportunities, mentorship and collaboration with world‑class minds, and a variety of projects with large scopes — while doing work that’s both fun and meaningful.

Join our life‑changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world.

Below you can find more information about the teams we're hiring for:

Language Learning:

The Language Learning Pillar owns the core learning experience on Duolingo — the lessons and immersive experiences where language learners spend a majority of their time in the app. Our goal is to make these sessions as effective and engaging as possible by continuously improving how we teach through new exercise types, smarter practice of skills, better scaffolding and personalization to help learners build foundational skills in a new language. As an engineering manager in this pillar, you'll lead a team of engineers working on high-impact, cross-functional problems at the intersection of engineering, product, and pedagogy. We're looking for leaders who are passionate about improving how people learn, and who bring strong technical judgment along with the people-management skills to build a high-performing, collaborative team culture.

Monetization:

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. We’re seeking engineering leaders who are passionate about bottom‑line business impact, and who bring fresh insights and a creative technical approach.

You will...

• 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.

You have...

• Experience leading, managing, and building a team of software engineers, with demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and retain talent.
• A track record of shipping multi‑engineer, multi‑week+ projects with measurable business impact, balancing speed and quality.
• Strong product instincts and comfort in highly experimental, data‑driven environments; experience defining metrics and running A/B tests with analytics or data science partners.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills across engineering, product, design, and data; clear written specs and status updates.
• Technical depth sufficient to guide architecture and implementation trade‑offs, evolve quality standards, and mentor engineers on best practices.
• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
• The ability to work from or relocate to Pittsburgh, PA or New York, NY.

Exceptional candidates will have...

• Experience leading cross‑functional teams focused on driving core product outcomes in consumer products.
• Experience setting team OKRs and operating cadences that consistently deliver outsized impact on company‑level metrics.
• Background dealing with ambiguity and managing teams or projects with broad cross‑functional scope.

The offered salary is dependent upon several factors, including work experience, skills, and internal peer comparisons. The posted range is subject to change in the future. For this role, base salary is supplemented by equity compensation. We encourage you to talk with your recruiter for more information related to compensation for this role!

Salary Range: $204,000—$306,000 USD

Benefits:

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

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.

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