Director of Learning Design, Language Learning

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. Its a big mission and thats where you come in!

At Duolingo youll join a team that cares about educating our users experimenting with big ideas making fact-based decisions and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. Youll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds while doing work thats 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

As Director of Learning Design for Language Learning you will set the pedagogical vision and execution strategy for Duolingos language-learning experiences driving learning impact curriculum quality and innovation at global scale. Youll lead a team of multi-disciplinary learning designers and partner with product leadership to ship delightful effective learning in the Duolingo style. This job is based in Pittsburgh.

You will...

• Ship effective learning at scale: partner with Product Design and Engineering to translate pedagogy into fun and motivating inapp experiences that build listening speaking reading and writing skills
• Lead and develop a worldclass team of learning designers leveling up their craft velocity and effectiveness
• Drive an experimentled practice: help design outcomefocused A/B tests align on success metrics (e.g. CEFR-aligned progress retention speaking/writing gains) and assist with analyzing learning and engagement impact
• Establish content quality systems (guidelines rubrics review workflows) that ensure linguistic accuracy difficulty calibration and a high-quality bar across language courses
• Lead through example by using AI to improve your craft and encouraging your team to do the same
• Explore the future of language teaching: develop and validate roadmaps for new skills modes and curricula that extend Duolingos impact

You have...

• Depth in language learning design: extensive experience (typically 10 years) designing language curricula or consumer learning products with proven impact at scale
• People leadership: 5 years leading multidisciplinary teams; experience managing managers and establishing highbar standards
• Product sense: an instinct for creating simple delightful and intuitive user experiences
• Operational rigor: proficiency in large-scale content operations QA processes and tooling to maintain quality across many languages ideally including experience with humanintheloop AI workflows
• Outstanding communication: clear kind and persuasive across audiences including executive and crossfunctional

Exceptional candidates will have...

• Graduate degree in Applied Linguistics Second Language Acquisition TESOL Linguistics Learning Science Cognitive Science HCI or a relevant language field; familiarity with proficiency frameworks (e.g. CEFR ACTFL) and assessment
• A track record of partnering with product design and engineering to ship lovable effective features on mobile