Senior Software Engineer, Backend
Duolingo · Pittsburgh, PA
Posted July 9, 2026
Job 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.
Below you can find more information about the team we're hiring for:
Content Infrastructure:
As a backend engineer on the Content Infrastructure Team, you'll build features that make up the core backbone of the learning experience on Duolingo. Our short-form lessons are where learners spend the majority of their time on the app, and our team's mission is to build and update infrastructure to enable quick iteration and improve content quality in these sessions.
You'll work on scaling new exercise types that support our learners in practicing speaking or grammar in bite-sized formats, as well as re-architecting our infrastructure in other ways to help set our teams up for success in the future. We're looking for engineers who are passionate about designing scalable systems to help improve the quality of our short-form sessions!
🧠 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!
Benefits: Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.
Job Alerts: Sign up for job alerts here.
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.
Equal Employment Opportunity: 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.
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.
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