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...
Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. With over 500 million users and rapid expansion across new subjects and markets, Duolingo's growth trajectory demands world-class analytical leadership. We're hiring a Senior Data Science Manager to lead the data science function within our Growth pillar, one of the most consequential areas of the business.
This person will own all aspects of product data science, forecasting, and business intelligence for User Growth. They will lead a team of 6 to 10 data scientists spanning staff to junior levels, with a mandate to coach, develop, and grow their careers while also expanding the team by hiring exceptional talent over time. The ideal candidate combines deep technical fluency in forecasting, statistical/ML modeling, and experimentation with genuine leadership ability: the kind of person who raises the bar for everyone around them.
This role reports to the Head of Data Science & Analytics and partners closely with cross-functional leadership in Engineering, Product, Design, and Finance.
🧠 You will...
- Set the analytical vision and roadmap for User Growth data science, ensuring the team's work is tightly aligned with company-level priorities and pillar-level goals.
- Lead a team of 6 to 10 data scientists. Build a culture of professional growth, intellectual rigor, creative problem-solving, and shipping impact. Grow the team over time by attracting and hiring outstanding talent.
- Support and evolve the practice of embedding Data Scientists within product development teams, simultaneously maintaining strong stakeholder connection and function cohesion.
- Own the design, execution, and interpretation of experiments and analyses that drive decisions on user acquisition, activation, retention, and reengagement. Improve and advocate for the methodological standards that ensure we learn reliably from every test.
- Develop and maintain user growth forecasting systems. Partner with Finance and Product to deliver credible, timely forecasts of key growth metrics and ensure leadership has the quantitative foundation to set targets and allocate resources.
- Drive business intelligence strategy within Growth, including the metrics layer, self-serve dashboards, and the analytical infrastructure that enables others to operate with data fluency.
- Translate complex analytical findings into clear narratives for senior leadership and cross-functional partners. Influence strategic decisions through a combination of technical depth and effective communication.
- Collaborate across organizational boundaries with Product Management, Engineering, Design, Marketing, and Finance to elevate every phase of product development.
✅ You have...
- Experience using data science and analytics to solve product and business problems.
- Experience managing 5+ person data science teams.
- A graduate degree in Data Science, Statistics, Economics, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent demonstrated expertise in formal analytical techniques.
- Applied industry experience using causal inference, experimentation, and/or machine learning models. You routinely use analytical tools in messy real world settings where details, confounds, and the validity of assumptions matter.
- Proven ability to build, lead, and grow a high-performing data science team. You have a track record of hiring well, developing people across levels, managing performance, and creating an environment where talented scientists do their best work.
- Strong command of SQL, Python or R, and data/analytics engineering ecosystems. You do not need to write production pipelines, but you need to go deep when the work requires it.
- Exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to distill complex quantitative work into crisp, actionable insights for diverse audiences.
⭐ Exceptional candidates will have...
- Experience operating at a high-growth, data-intensive consumer technology company.
- Experience developing and implementing a long-range analytical vision that shaped product strategy and business outcomes.
- Demonstrated success in building forecasting systems or attribution models at scale.
- Experience navigating the transition from growth-stage to scaled public company, including the analytical demands that come with investor-grade reporting and forecasting.
- Experience with AI and machine learning as applied to user behavior modeling, notification optimization, or personalization.
- An impressive Duolingo streak.
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
- Experience using data science and analytics to solve product and business problems.
- Experience managing 5+ person data science teams.
- Graduate degree in Data Science, Statistics, Economics, or related quantitative field, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.
- Applied industry experience using causal inference, experimentation, and/or machine learning models.
- Proven ability to build, lead, and grow a high-performing data science team, including hiring and performance management.
- Strong command of SQL, Python or R, and data/analytics engineering ecosystems.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills to translate quantitative findings for diverse audiences.
- Experience operating at a high-growth, data-intensive consumer technology company.
- Experience developing and implementing a long-range analytical vision that shaped product strategy and business outcomes.
- Demonstrated success in building forecasting systems or attribution models at scale.
- Experience navigating transition from growth-stage to scaled public company, including investor-grade reporting and forecasting.
- Experience with AI and machine learning applied to user behavior modeling, notification optimization, or personalization.
- Impressive Duolingo streak.
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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