Senior/Staff/Senior Staff Backend Software Engineer, Duolingo
$148.8-274.6k
+ Equity
Language education platform
Job no longer available
Language education platform
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$148.8-274.6k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
Duolingo's mission is to give everyone access to a private tutor experience through technology, making learning fun and providing universal access to language education.
Role
Who you are
- 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
Desirable
- Industry experience building high-traffic APIs using public cloud providers
What the job involves
- 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
- The Monetization Area focuses on Duolingo’s key business drivers—subscriptions, ads, and in-app purchases. Our area’s 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
- 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
Otta's take
Sam Franklin
CEO of Otta
Duolingo is a free to use language learning app, offering 95 courses across 38 distinct languages. It is the most downloaded education app in the history of the App Store and has previously been awarded Apple's iPhone App of the Year and Android's Best of the Best.
With over 500 million learners, the company has unprecedented data insights on how people learn. Its team of language learning scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI experts use this data to constantly improve its effectiveness.
Alongside language courses, the company has created the Duolingo English Test which is an affordable and convenient language certification option accepted by more than 2,000 universities and institutions worldwide. Since its 2021 IPO, Duolingo has shown strong momentum and regular changes to the app have brought increased user engagement, retention, and stronger conversion.
Insights
Some candidates hear
back within 2 weeks
54% female employees
15% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Nov 2020
$35m
LATE VC
Apr 2020
$10m
LATE VC
Total funding: $183.3m
Company benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision for employees as well as eligible partners and dependents
- Mental health benefits such as therapy sessions and coaching to support you to be your best self
- Fertility benefits to support your family planning journey
- Fully paid parental and adoption leave
- Fully paid subscription to Care.com and paid backup days for dependents and your fur family
- 401(k) with generous match and immediate vesting
- 20 days of paid time off, with two additional weeks off for winter break
- First-time home buyer bonus (in Pittsburgh)
- Competitive salaries and equity
- Yearly stipend for professional development
- Transportation reimbursement for however you get to work
- Lunch prepared daily by our in-house chefs
- Annual international retreat for all full-time employees
- Monthly events celebrating our team and their amazing work
- On-site gym and massages
- Game room for taking brain breaks
Company values
- Learners First - Our mission and reason for existing is to make sure everyone in the world has access to high-quality education
- Take The Long View - If it works in the short-term but hurts Duolingo in the long-term, it's not right. We make decisions that keep us moving toward our big goals
- Prioritize Ruthlessly - We have millions of learners and only hundreds of employees, so our work must focus on initiatives that have high return on investment. Make your time matter
- Ship It - For a good idea to become reality, it needs a plan and a sense of urgency. So go go go!
- Test Everything - We measure and test everything so we can make informed decisions based on data
- We Haven’t Won Yet - Until every person who wants to learn is doing so with Duolingo, we need to keep innovating, pushing the envelope, and learning ways to get better
- Strive For Excellence - To change how the world learns, we must do world-class work. From the people we hire to the features we ship, we never settle for just okay
- All For One, One For All - We stay engaged and make choices that benefit the greater good-because Duolingo's success is our success
- Be Candid And Kind - We build things together with transparency and care for each other. We offer feedback compassionately but with excellence in mind, and receive it openly and as an opportunity to grow
Company HQ
East Liberty, Pittsburgh, PA
Founders
Luis von Ahn
(CEO)Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and founder of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA sold to Google.
Severin Hacker
(CTO)PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job