Senior Director of Engineering, New Subjects

About the Role

Duolingo is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to co-lead its newest subjects: Math, Music, and Chess. These products reach millions of daily active users and support the company's ambition to become a platform for learning anything.

Partner closely with Product and Design to build and scale products from early development through high-growth initiatives. Make decisions about subject investment, engineering resource allocation, continued investment, and pivots.

This role is based in the New York, NY office on a 4+1 hybrid work schedule.

Responsibilities

• Drive product and technical strategy across Math, Music, and Chess, balancing near-term impact with long-term goals.
• Partner with Product, Design, Learning, and AI to evolve strategy and decide when and how to expand into additional subjects.
• Lead multiple engineering directors and their teams working on AI-based content creation at scale, neural bots, and Unity-based gameplay.
• Drive operational excellence across engineering, including reliability, performance, developer productivity, and efficient execution at scale.
• Contribute to hiring decisions, leveling, talent systems, and organizational design to maintain a high-performance team.
• Lead an organization that moves quickly, runs high-quality experiments, and translates product insights into measurable business impact.
• Build and develop a strong leadership bench capable of bringing ambitious products to market.

Qualifications

• Experience leading consumer product engineering organizations of more than 100 engineers, ideally across multiple high-growth product experiences.
• Strong product instincts and experience partnering with senior product leadership to define strategy, not just execute it.
• A track record of measurable business impact, including growing products from early development through significant company scale.
• Experience building or scaling LLM-powered product features and a strong interest in engineering cultures that embrace AI-first ways of working.
• Deep experience scaling high-velocity, experiment-driven product organizations through multiple leadership layers, including senior directors, directors, and engineering managers.
• A track record of building high-performance, inclusive teams and making thoughtful talent decisions.
• Ability to influence senior executives and bring clarity to ambiguous, cross-functional situations.
• Ability to work from the New York office on a 4+1 hybrid schedule.

Compensation

• Annual base salary range: $296,000–$444,000 USD.
• Base salary is supplemented by equity compensation.
• Offered salary depends on work experience, skills, and internal peer comparisons. The posted range may change; contact your recruiter for compensation details.

Interview and Application Information

• For interview assistance or accommodations, contact accommodations@duolingo.com.
• Duolingo will never request your Social Security number, bank details, or passport information during interviews, or ask you to deposit a check, purchase equipment, or exchange money.
• Authentic employee emails end in @duolingo.com or @recruiting.duolingo.com. Verify these details before sharing information.
• Applicant data is processed according to the Duolingo Applicant Privacy Notice.