Staff Technical Program Manager

Description

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...

This is a high-impact L4 TPM role based in New York City, starting in one of Duolingo's fastest-moving pillars: Growth. You'll partner closely with engineering and product leadership to drive complex, cross-functional initiatives that span multiple teams and require someone who can bring structure, alignment, and momentum. Beyond Growth, Duolingo has a growing engineering and product presence in New York, and this role puts you at the center of it, building relationships with senior leaders on the ground and taking on high-ROI initiatives across the org as they come.

This is a role for someone who operates at the strategic level: identifying opportunities, shaping programs, and driving outcomes that matter to the business. If you thrive in ambiguity, build trust quickly across engineering and product, and want to have real impact at a company whose product is used by hundreds of millions of people, this role is for you.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the roadmap for high-impact, cross-functional initiatives in the Growth pillar and beyond, aligning engineering and product leadership around a shared vision, sequencing the work, and holding teams accountable to outcomes.
• Lead organizational change management as engineering teams adopt new ways of working — building alignment, communicating progress to executives and ICs alike, and helping teams internalize new processes and tooling.
• Lead the delivery of strategic, high-impact cross-functional initiatives from conceptualization to launch, operating with significant autonomy across multiple workstreams.
• Partner with engineering, product, data science, QA, and executive leadership to ensure communication and alignment; serve as the connective tissue between Duolingo strategy and day-to-day execution.
• Leverage deep technical expertise to develop detailed plans with key milestones and goals, identify and mitigate risks, resolve dependencies, remove blockers, and ensure timely and smooth launches.
• Drive decisions when difficult tradeoffs must be made, including those with cross-organizational or company-level impact; model how to navigate hard problems with analytical rigor and a calm, decisive presence.
• Identify systemic issues impacting delivery efficiency company-wide and take swift, collaborative action to resolve them.
• Guide and develop other TPMs and engineering leads, scaling best practices across teams and continuously improving how the organization operates.

Requirements

• Proven experience as a TPM, Engineering Lead, or Engineering Manager.
• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or equivalent degree or experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale technical transformation programs with measurable organizational impact - you've shifted how engineering organizations think and work, not just shipped projects.
• Strong executive presence and influence in a matrix environment - able to build conviction among skeptics, align competing priorities across senior leadership, and drive decisions without direct authority.
• Deep technical credibility - enough to challenge architectural assumptions, spot delivery risks early, and earn the trust of strong engineers.
• Proven ability to build and implement detailed plans that account for ambiguity, dependencies, and technical complexity - and to re-plan quickly when things change, without losing team confidence or momentum.
• A track record of standing up new programs or practices from scratch in ambiguous, high-visibility environments.
• Ability to relocate to NYC.
• Exceptional candidates will have...
• Strong knowledge of software engineering, systems engineering, or similar hands-on technical experience, in addition to program management experience.
• Strong conceptual fluency in LLM-based products and AI infrastructure - enough to ask the right questions, challenge technical assumptions, and identify delivery risks.
• Experience running programs that include machine learning, large datasets, or AI/ML infrastructure.
• Experience working with AWS at scale.
• 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!

Conditions

$181,600 - $272,400 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 .

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.