software engineer

senior software engineer

software engineer intern

senior program manager

senior product manager

Duolingo


I really liked this job until it became too much. We started out not having to work weekends or a set amount of hours but that changed and they weren't very good about implementing process changes. Management is very rude if you make one mistake and they always threaten to fire you. I was called a liar and poor worker in a meeting for something that ended up not being my fault, my job was also threatened in the same meeting and after the fact, they pretended that everything was fine. Communication is very poor from top management and down. New scheduling is inconvenient for those who want to set normal working hours in their time zone and the programs/process they try to use for it caused issues for many employees. They always say they are trying to figure out ways to show employees more appreciation but they don't. We used to get monthly incentives but they even stopped doing those. People are constantly leaving the job and I see why. I should've seen the signs when 5 team leads left all at once.... if you want to be overwhelmed and overlooked then this is for you.
Advice to Management
Do better. You send out surveys on how to improve yet you disregard those suggestions. Reevaluate to top management, some of them are very mean spirited and disrespectful to employees below them. Stop bombarding employees with changes and then being rude about said changes and suggestions

The work environment was chaotic and abusive. Higher-ups frequently changed their minds. One day they wanted one thing and the next day they didn't. Feedback ranged from useful and encouraging to random and micromanaging. When expectations changed or simply were not communicated, subordinates were responsible for not meeting expectations. These patterns became demoralizing over time.

The most disappointing part was that money seemed to be the company's main driver. Best practices in education and language teaching often took a backseat.

When my contract ended, they felt the need to remind me that they owned everything I worked on, and only an hour had passed when they wanted to cut off my access immediately. I found this behavior to be unnecessary and weird.

This used to be a decent company, but they don't care about their employees at all. They will fire you by just cutting off your access to their systems with no warning at all, then refuse to tell you what you did wrong. This happened not to me, but to someone I know and it's a shady way to do business. 

The proctor process is a sham. No one really knows what they're doing, but they pretend to in order to keep the illusion that the English test is reliable. It's not.

The company has experienced rapid, ongoing growth due to COVID-19 and I've definitely felt that throughout my time with the company. However, the management staff do care and you can tell the company is constantly striving to meet both customer and employee needs. 

All those haters below are in low-paying roles. Good benefits, good compensation. Work-life balance might be off if you wish to succeed. We grow fast, so our expectations are always higher than we can achieve, which can be stressful for some people. We encourage people to get along with co-workers. A lot of fun club activities. Everyone is mostly nice. I don't know why, maybe people get fired for not being nice.

People are very kind and smart. Great culture as well: people are friends outside of work as well and actually care about each other. 

Work-life balance depends on team or roles. The amount of stress can be uneven across different teams. 

Promotion and performance rating can be better calibrated across different managers.

For a long time, Duolingo was a great place to work as a freelance contractor. Contractors were valued and treated with kindness. Then when AI came along everything changed. Rather than an education first company, Duolingo has become a tech first company, and the quality of new products is suffering as a result. 

The best part of the job is to collaborate with colleagues from different backgrounds, e.g. education, design, podcast, AI, and different locations. I also like that the company highly values regular, in-person employee gatherings.



It is so refreshing to meet people in person that also use the application that I work alongside of. I feel my goal is to show how great this application is to everyone I meet through my excitement and advancements with the tool.

As part of the curriculum design team, I work with a small group of others to establish grammatical tasks each lesson, create sentences, translate them, and hand it off. An easy position, but it depends highly on who your manager is (i.e. how stressed you will be).

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 6 salaries reported	$162,250 per year
Senior software engineer 3 salaries reported	$176,667 per year
Software engineer intern 4 salaries reported	$50.75 per hour
Senior program manager 5 salaries reported	$155,080 per year
Senior product manager 4 salaries reported	$216,500 per year

Working at Duolingo: Company Overview and Reviews

Duolingo

Duolingo Ratings

Popular jobs at Duolingo

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected