Senior Software Engineer, Backend

• 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.
• We're looking for backend engineers who have experience building and operating reliable, scalable systems.
• Your background may be in product engineering, infrastructure, platform engineering, or a combination of these.
• What matters most is strong backend fundamentals, sound systems thinking, and the ability to take ownership of complex technical problems from design through production.
• Below you can find more information about the team we're hiring for:

Monetization:

• The Monetization Pillar focuses on Duolingo's key business drivers—subscriptions, ads, and in-app purchases.
• Our goal is to build the best premium experiences for our learners while ensuring the sustainability and success of our business model.
• You will play an instrumental role in the strategic direction of Duolingo by developing and refining the methods that make our monetization efforts more effective and efficient.
• We're seeking engineers who are passionate about bottom-line business impact, and who bring fresh insights and a creative technical approach.

Platform:

The Platform Pillar ensures that Duolingo's infrastructure, tools, and AI systems support our mission of delivering a seamless and personalized learning experience. This Pillar powers the technical backbone of our app and enables all other Pillars to thrive.

Growth:

• Growth is core to our mission at Duolingo; helping users find and build a habit with language learning is tied to our ability to make the product fun and engaging every single day.
• We work on a wide variety of features that build and strengthen habits, like streaks, quests, leaderboards, notifications, and are inventing new features to address user needs.

🧠 You will...

• Collaborate on software projects with product design and backend aspects
• Develop, release, and maintain backend services and/or infrastructure
• Lead individual project priorities, milestones, and ensure 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

⭐ Exceptional candidates will have...

• Industry experience building high-traffic APIs using public cloud providers
• Experience with industry observability technology, such as OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Prometheus, or DataDog.

• 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 .

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.

• 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.
• By applying for this position your data will be processed as per the Duolingo Applicant Privacy Notice .