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.
About the role
As a Backend Engineer you will work on building the APIs that power our products and give our learners a best-in-class experience.
Our microservices infrastructure is composed of hundreds of endpoints serving hundreds of millions of requests per day. You will partner with your team members on identifying requirements and designing services that are fast, resilient, and cost effective. You will have ownership over the entire lifecycle of your services and associated infrastructure, and ensure they are always operating well.
Below you can find more information about teams we're hiring for:
Architecture Team:
- The Architecture team’s mission is to ensure that Duolingo’s software continues to scale as we grow. We work on some of the largest and most critical infrastructure run by Duolingo and provide tools and best practice guidance to teams as they look to create new features and services. In this role, you will lay the groundwork for the future success of Duolingo’s software platforms.
DET Test Scoring Team:
- As an engineer on the Scoring team for the Duolingo English Test, you will help advance the state of the art in language testing. You will work closely with AI researchers and assessment scientists to pioneer innovative and AI-driven ways to assess language ability, while maintaining critical infrastructure and strengthening the test’s reliability. You will advance the team’s mission to lower barriers and increase opportunities for English language learners everywhere.
DET Proctoring Operations Team:
- The Proctoring Operations team’s mission is to ensure that we provide high-quality and efficient human proctoring for all Duolingo English Test tests. In this role, you will take on full-stack web development work. You will primarily work on the ‘proctor portal’ an in-house tool used by contractors for proctoring the test. You will also work closely with the anti-cheating team to take new signals developed by them and put them in the hands of proctors.
Learning Scaling Area:
- The Learning Scaling Area’s mission is to ensure that all of Duolingo’s learners have access to high-quality educational content. We leverage pedagogical experts and AI to create content for over 100 courses. You will be responsible for building and improving the infrastructure and tooling that drives content creation.
Learning R&D Area:
- The Learning R&D Area works on improving the learning experience of our users with new bets, technologies, and features, that fill the learning gaps in our product. Our goal is to make Duolingo the best way to level up your language skills, regardless of your proficiency level.
You will...
- Collaborate on software projects with product design and backend aspects
- Develop, release, and maintain backend services and/or infrastructure
- Lead individual project priorities, milestones, and ensure we're always shipping
You have...
- A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related technical field
- Strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and software design
- Experience programming in Java, Python, or Kotlin
- Solid understanding of one or more database technologies
Exceptional candidates will have...
- Industry experience building high-traffic APIs using public cloud providers
Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.
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 your recruiter.
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.
By applying for this position your data will be processed as per the Duolingo Applicant Privacy Notice.
We post a multi-level salary range for all of our roles.
This is not inclusive of the rest of our awesome portfolio that includes equity compensation and world-class benefits. Our salary ranges are the same for all US locations. Your recruiter can share more details about the range for a specific level during the hiring process. The actual salary within the range is determined by many factors including but not limited to, skills, experience, education, and internal equity.
Salary Range:
$148,800—$274,600 USD
Top Skills
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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