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.
Responsibilities
- 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
Requirements
- 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
Conditions
- Base salary supplemented by equity compensation
- Benefits: Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.