Senior Software Engineer, Backend

About this role

Senior Software Engineer, Backend

New York, NY

Req ID: 1281

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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...

Duolingo, Inc. seeks multiple Senior Software Engineers, Backend (New York, NY) to:

🧠 You will...

• Develop, release, and maintain backend services and infrastructure to support scalable, high-performance applications, ensuring seamless integration across product, design, and backend systems.
• Design and implement backend services and APIs that power core products and deliver a seamless experience for internal users and teams.
• Develop and enhance CI/CD pipelines and release quality tooling, providing early feedback loops and visibility into release health throughout the rollout process.
• Build instrumentation frameworks, deploy telemetry infrastructure, and design dashboards, connecting system signals to proactively detect and resolve issues before they impact users.
• Ensure adherence to security, compliance, and data governance requirements by implementing scalable, reliable data handling and access controls.
• Generate metrics and AI synthesized insights around bugs and user sentiment to proactively identify and address quality issues.
• Collaborate on various software projects with product design and backend aspects.
• Provide technical direction and architecture guidance for junior engineers across the company.
• Some telecommuting permitted consistent with company policy.

✅ You have...

• Requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Software Engineering or a related field and 3 years of experience in a Software Engineering or a related position.
• Must have 3 years of experience with: Building high-traffic APIs using public cloud providers; Contributing to both frontend and backend software development; Multithreaded programming techniques; and Writing unit tests and testable code.
• Must have knowledge or coursework in: Algorithms; Data structures; Software design; and Programming languages: Python or Java.

To apply, email resumes to [email removed] or visit https://careers.duolingo.com, reference code #1281.

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 your recruiter.

Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.

Duolingo is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. 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.

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

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

AI in Hiring: Duolingo uses AI technology to assist in our hiring process. We want to be transparent about how we use this technology and your rights. We use Greenhouse Software's Talent Matching feature to assist with reviewing applications for the skills and experience we have decided are important for this role.

How it works:

1. Talent Matching reviews your resume and responses to application questions to determine the extent to which your qualifications match the job requirements selected for this role. These requirements and their desired weighting are established by our recruiters in collaboration with hiring managers.
2. All Talent Matching output is reviewed by our recruiting and hiring teams, who make the final decision on each application. Talent Matching does not automatically disposition any candidate or make hiring decisions.

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