Job Application for Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Score) at Duolingo

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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...

Duolingo Score is how we reflect a learner's real language proficiency back to them. As the team lead / backend engineer on this small, high-impact team, you'll help make learners care about their score as much as they care about their streak. You'll partner closely with the Score Pillar's product and design team and our iOS and Android engineers, working on the systems that power score calculation, proficiency modeling, and how score surfaces across the app — including integrations with external platforms like LinkedIn, so learners can showcase their proficiency beyond Duolingo.

🧠 You will...

Lead a small team (3 engineers including yourself), owning both technical direction and day-to-day execution
Touch critical backend services like user-tree-backend and session-generator, which define score calculation, proficiency modeling, and multiple score entry points across the learning app
Collaborate on software projects with product and design
Develop, release, and maintain backend services and/or infrastructure
Work closely with multiple pillars — including Growth, Learning, and Score — to build your impact and visibility
Lead individual and team project priorities and milestones, ensuring we're always shipping

✅ You have...

A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a 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
Interest in growing into (or continuing to develop as) a technical team lead

⭐ Exceptional candidates will have...

Experience working with product and design teams to improve engagement
Prior experience leading or mentoring engineers on a small team

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!

Salary Range:

$182,800 - $247,300 USD

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 accommodations@duolingo.com.

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.

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To fulfill our mission of developing the best education in the world and making it universally available, we seek exceptional talent for every role. We recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds. To help us evaluate our hiring process for equitability, we invite U.S. applicants to share their demographic information. Participation in this survey is voluntary and confidential. Participation will not affect any hiring decisions or outcomes.

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AI in Hiring: Duolingo uses AI technology to assist in our hiring process. We want to be transparent about how we use this technology and your rights. We use Greenhouse Software's Talent Matching feature to assist with reviewing applications for the skills and experience we have decided are important for this role.

How it works:

Talent Matching reviews your resume and responses to application questions to determine the extent to which your qualifications match the job requirements selected for this role. These requirements and their desired weighting are established by our recruiters in collaboration with hiring managers.
All Talent Matching output is reviewed by our recruiting and hiring teams, who make the final decision on each application. Talent Matching does not automatically disposition any candidate or make hiring decisions.

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Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Score)

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