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 educating our users, experimenting with big ideas, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. You’ll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds — while doing work that’s both meaningful and fun.
Join our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world.
Read our blog to learn more.
About the role...
Join us to build Duolingo Ads, Duolingo’s direct ad business. Most learners use our free, ad‑supported app—so great ads are core to our mission. We’re hiring a Head of West Coast Sales to open and scale our West Coast region. You will set regional strategy, build and lead a high‑performing team, and own revenue outcomes across priority verticals and agency holding companies. As a player/coach, you’ll cultivate senior‑level relationships, shape pricing and packaging with leadership, and close high‑impact deals that both delight learners and drive revenue while leading a team of sellers. This is a high‑ownership, early‑stage opportunity to help define how ads show up for hundreds of millions of learners while building a repeatable, data‑driven go‑to‑market.
🧠 You will...
- Own West Coast revenue targets and forecasting; build a healthy, predictable pipeline across named accounts and agency groups, and deliver against quarterly goals.
- Develop and execute the regional go‑to‑market strategy, including territory design, vertical focus, pricing/packaging inputs, and coverage plans as we scale.
- Hire, coach, and lead a small team of sellers over time; establish operating rhythms, deal reviews, and CRM hygiene standards that improve forecast accuracy and execution.
- Build and deepen senior relationships at brands and agencies; open new logos and expand strategic accounts with clear commercial narratives that map Duolingo’s unique strengths (design, IP, native formats) to client objectives.
- Lead complex deals end‑to‑end—from prospecting and positioning through negotiation, close, renewal, and expansion—partnering tightly with Account Management and Ad Ops for flawless delivery.
- Share actionable market feedback with sales and product leadership to inform pricing, packaging, measurement, and ad experiences while protecting the learner experience.
- Operate with speed and rigor in a startup‑like environment, building repeatable sales motions, outreach cadences, and team practices that scale from 0→1 and 1→N.
✅ You have...
- 8+ years of direct digital ad sales experience with a consistent track record of hunting, closing, and renewing in premium mobile or consumer app environments.
- Success selling video and native/custom formats and structuring innovative agreements with top‑tier advertisers and agencies.
- Proven ability to engage senior decision makers while rolling up your sleeves to build collateral, troubleshoot issues, and drive revenue personally.
- Strong understanding of ad tech and mobile app ecosystems, with skill using data to assess performance and inform pricing and packaging.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills, and comfort operating with ambiguity at high velocity.
⭐ Exceptional candidates will have...
- Established relationships across West Coast brand and agency decision makers.
- Experience introducing or scaling a new ads product from 0→1 within a publisher or platform environment.
- Experience shaping regional GTM, sales process, or coverage models beyond an individual book of business.
- Familiarity partnering with Account Management and Ad Ops on native/custom programs and live‑campaign storytelling to drive renewals.
- Vertical expertise in Entertainment, Gaming, Streaming, or Tech that accelerates early traction.
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!
Benefits: Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.
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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 [email protected].
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.
Fraud Warning: Unfortunately, there is a rise in scammers pretending to be real Duolingo employees. Duolingo and our employees will never ask for your Social Security number, bank details, or passport info, and we’ll never ask you to deposit a check, purchase equipment, or exchange money during the interview process. Real Duolingo employees always use an email that ends in @duolingo.com or @recruiting.duolingo.com. Stay alert and double-check these details before sharing any information.
By applying for this position your data will be processed as per the Duolingo Applicant Privacy Notice.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of direct digital ad sales experience in mobile or consumer app environments
- Proven track record of hunting, closing, and renewing enterprise-level digital ad deals
- Experience selling video and native/custom ad formats
- Ability to engage senior decision makers and personally drive revenue
- Strong understanding of ad tech and mobile app ecosystems and using data to inform pricing/packaging
- Excellent communication and presentation skills; comfort with ambiguity and high velocity
- Established relationships across West Coast brand and agency decision makers
- Experience introducing or scaling a new ads product from 0->1 within a publisher or platform
- Experience shaping regional GTM, sales process, or coverage models
- Familiarity partnering with Account Management and Ad Ops on native/custom programs and campaign storytelling
- Vertical expertise in Entertainment, Gaming, Streaming, or Tech
Duolingo Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Duolingo and has not been reviewed or approved by Duolingo.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered competitive for core engineering and product roles, with required jurisdictions showing posted ranges and immigration filings implying a strong base-salary floor. Public compensation snapshots indicate senior packages can scale higher, supporting a clear, market-aligned structure.
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Healthcare Strength — Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage is paired with mental-health resources and fertility support as core offerings. Coverage for dependents and strong wellness benefits are consistently highlighted.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — About 20 days of PTO plus a two‑week company winter break and paid holidays provide substantial time away. A formal sabbatical at 10 years further expands long‑term recharge options.
Duolingo Insights
What We Do
Duolingo is a language-learning education platform that offers 98 total courses across nearly 40 distinct languages. Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn a language. Our mission is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. Some of our products include: 1. Duolingo: The free, fun, and effective way to learn a language! 2. DET (Duolingo English Test): A modern language proficiency tool designed for today's international students and institutions. It offers an English proficiency score, video interview, and writing sample in an accessible, efficient, and secure testing experience. 3. Duolingo Math: An app that can make math be fun. For everyone. Students can focus on elementary math, which covers classroom topics, or adults can focus on brain training, which strengthens mental math skills and covers more advanced topics. 4. Duolingo ABC: An educational learning app that offers immersive lessons to teach preschool to second grade kids reading fundamentals. Founded in 2011 by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker, Duolingo is the most downloaded education app in the history of the App Store and in 2019 became the top-grossing education app worldwide. The app has been awarded Apple's iPhone App of the Year and Android's Best of the Best. Learning a new language used to be expensive; we believe it should be free. Over 1.2 billion people are learning a second language and most of them are learning English to improve their lives. Learning a new language is hard; we believe it can be fun. We use bite-sized lessons that feel like playing a game to keep our learners motivated. With over 500 million learners we have unprecedented data insights on how people learn. Our teams of language learning scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI experts use this data to constantly improve our effectiveness. We’re building a future in which the highest-quality education is accessible to all. Duolingo has been named: 2022 Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators 2022 Fast Company 10 Most Innovative Education Company 2021 Forbes Best Startup Employers 2020, 2018, 2017, 2013 Most Innovative Company by Fast Company 2020 Best Machine Learning Startups for by Glassdoor 2018 Inc. Best Places to Work 2018 Entrepreneur Top Company Culture List University Program Awards: 2022 Handshake Early Talent Award 2022 Untapped Top Internship Programs 2022 OneReq Internship Program Trailblazer Award
Why Work With Us
Our global team works together to make language learning fun, free, and effective for anyone who wants to learn, wherever they are. Best of all, you get to work alongside Duo (literally)!
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