Duolingo

📣 This just in: a new study shows that Duolingo learners outperform students in a university-level English course! - The study, conducted by an independent research group, looked at 2 groups of learners in Colombia - One group of learners spent about 3 hours per week in a university-level English course; the others studied English on Duolingo for the same amount of time - The university class group did not show significant improvement in their English, while the Duolingo group improved significantly in overall English proficiency, and in all four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking! Read the full study here: https://lnkd.in/eC7iDams Explore more of the latest research from our Efficacy Research Lab! https://lnkd.in/ge-cifsy

In honor of International Owl Day, we're sharing some digital drawings of Duo the owl from Associate Creative Director, Kurt Hartfelder. 🦉 He says, "Sometimes you just have to do something really strange to keep it interesting and loosen yourself up." It's also a way to have fun on their team, "It's kinda like passing notes in class to try to get someone to laugh." 😜 Want to join our group of designers? See owl of our postings here: https://lnkd.in/eND6aRAq #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #technology #design #jobs #hiring

Fun Fact: Our Duo (employee), Zexuan Wang, is an alternate player for Canada's table tennis team at the Olympics. He started playing in China at the age of 7 and immigrated with his parents to Canada for high school when he was 15, making the Canadian national team for the 2010-2011 season. 🇨🇦 He took a break to start his software engineering career but started playing again with his wife during Covid when there was extra free time. He has been practicing 2-3 hours a day ever since. 🏓 He says, "My manager, Sharanya Viswanath, and [Infrastructure] teammates accommodate my training and competing schedule a lot. Honestly, one of the major reasons I chose Duolingo two years ago is because I wanted to continue my table tennis career (I actually had other offers with higher compensation but I didn't take them since I was scared I wouldn't have time for table tennis)." 💚 We love hiring people with interests outside of work because those experiences bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. Do you have any unique interests? 👉 BTW, our Test and Release Infrastructure team is looking for another t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ t̶e̶n̶n̶i̶s̶ p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶ software engineer: https://lnkd.in/e4ahKdKN Check out all our jobs here: https://lnkd.in/eDXV7a32 #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #technology #engineering #softwareengineers #hiring

Every July, we have a three-day company Hackathon where we pause our day-to-day work and focus on dreaming big. 💚 This isn’t just for good company morale, or solely for fun, (although it is very fun!), it is a great way to build a pipeline of ideas we may not have considered otherwise. 💡 And sometimes we launch real products from it, like the Duolingo English Test. Our CEO, Luis von Ahn, describes the core purpose of the Hackathon this way: “There is a delicate balance in a startup between focusing on the core product and coming up with new crazy ideas. On one hand, we have very limited time to succeed, so it is imperative that we focus on optimizing our core service as much as possible. On the other, the long term survival of the company (and our own personal fulfillment) requires us to come up with new revolutionary ideas that may not exactly fit our core product.” ⚡ We just wrapped up our Hackathon this year with 89 amazing projects our Duos came up with! 👏🏽 Here is a snapshot: -A Duo figurine that changes his facial expressions based on your streak, or lack thereof 😡 -Fortune cookies with content sourced from Duolingo phrases like “Ich sage den Opfern die Wahrheit.” Translation: "I am telling the victims the truth." 🥠 -Streakaversary Celebrations, an AI-powered project to celebrate major milestones with World Character messages 🎉 -Engineering Illustrated, a series of comics that try to explain complicated things 💥 Have any big ideas? Come join our team: https://lnkd.in/ezX62QEP #duolingo #engineering #productdesign #productmanagement #innovation #technology #onlyatduolingo #hackathon

Duo’s job: notifications. What’s your job in one word? #owlympics #duolingo #technology

Product Management is an extremely important function at Duolingo. One of our competitive advantages that empowers our Product Managers to ship faster is our Product Reviews. ⏩ Product Review is the process by which we review and approve larger changes to Duolingo products. Each PR includes our CEO, Luis von Ahn, a representative from Design, and a representative from Product. 💡Here are a few reasons why our Product Managers think our Product Reviews are unique at Duolingo: 1. Exposure to C-level execs 2. Moving quickly—ideas are presented and decisions are made within 15 mins 3. The opportunity to shadow any Product Review, meaning you can learn how decisions are made 4. The combination of all of the above, allowing you to rapidly develop your product sense 🧑🏽🔬 Because experimentation runs through our veins, we have optimized this process over time and our head of product, Cem Kansu, recapped our best practices here: https://lnkd.in/eS7NfvP3 #duolingo #product #productmanagement #productreviews #technology

Rive lets you build interactive motion graphics for runtime. Jeff Masters, Duolingo’s first hired creative technologist, explains, “Before, animators supplied a mockup with technical specifications on how their vision can be recreated by engineers with code. But now, Rive lets our animators and creative technologists create the actual asset that is used in the app. No more going back and forth with engineers to nail the look. In Rive, the design is the final product.” ✅ Because of this, Rive has drastically improved our team's workflow and created a more efficient pipeline. ⚡ Alex Chopjian, our associate creative director of animation, says it well: “The creative technologist is a burgeoning role. In general, there will be more of these relationships needed between animators and engineering. This extends past character animation and into UI because of the rise of interactivity...I do think apps, products, and websites need to make their experience more delightful to compete with gamified apps.” 🎮 https://lnkd.in/dAnFschi #tech #creativetechnologist #design #animation #engineering #duolingo

At Duolingo, we take food seriously. This is because food is a representation of culture and it is also a way to bring people together, just like languages. We offer breakfast 🍳 and lunch 🍔 at the office made by our talented chefs. The entire company blocks their calendar at lunch (execs included) so that we can catch up and enjoy our meal together. 💚 Our food options are rooted in the diversity we have at our company, to ensure every single person feels represented across cultures, regions, and flavors. 🍱 🌮 🥐 One way we do this is through our series of international lunches like Lunar New Year with Miso Cured Cod and Orange Tofu or our Philippines lunch with Chicken Adobo and Lumpia. We also label all of our snack drawers in different languages and we even have a ramen vending machine (!). 😋 Hungry to work here? Check out our 𝚛̶𝚘̶𝚕̶𝚕̶𝚜̶ roles: https://lnkd.in/eFcBC6DT #onlyatduolingo #duolingo #culture

It’s #nationalinternday and we want to take a moment to celebrate our 81 (!) Duo interns who have come from all around the world to join us for the summer! This week, all of our interns are in our Pittsburgh HQ. We believe interns are critical to our long-term success. We learn as much from them as they learn from us. As a way to give back to our interns and interns around the world, we’re looking to crowdsource resources to help them thrive in the workplace. What are your favorite book, podcast, or newsletter recommendations for interns looking to start a career in tech? 📚 🎧 📧 You can find more information about our internship opportunities here: https://lnkd.in/d8tn8hDj #duolingosummer #niw #onlyatduolingo #Duolingo #tech #crowdsource #interns

Duo had a rough start this morning but hopes everyone's day at work is better than his! #duolingo #onlyatduolingo