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Salary: USD 182,800 - 247,300 / annual
Duolingo is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Backend to lead the Score team, a small high-impact group focused on reflecting learner language proficiency through the Duolingo Score system. In this role, you will lead a team of 3 engineers, owning both technical direction and day-to-day execution while working on critical backend services that power score calculation, proficiency modeling, and score surfacing across the learning app.
Key responsibilities include leading a small backend engineering team, touching critical services like user-tree-backend and session-generator, collaborating with product and design teams on software projects, developing and maintaining backend services and infrastructure, working across multiple pillars (Growth, Learning, Score) to build impact and visibility, and leading project priorities and milestones to ensure continuous shipping.
You will partner closely with the Score Pillar's product and design teams and iOS/Android engineers, working on systems that integrate with external platforms like LinkedIn so learners can showcase their proficiency beyond Duolingo. The role offers limitless learning opportunities, mentorship, and collaboration with world-class engineers on projects with large scopes.
Required qualifications include a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related technical field, strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and software design, experience programming in Java, Python, or Kotlin, solid understanding of database technologies, and interest in growing into or continuing to develop as a technical team lead.
Exceptional candidates will have experience working with product and design teams to improve engagement and prior experience leading or mentoring engineers on small teams. This is a full-time, in-office position in New York offering competitive compensation including base salary and equity.
