Senior Director of Engineering, New Subjects

About the role

You will define and own the technical vision and execution roadmap for Duolingo's newest subject areas, namely Music and Chess, ensuring that product strategy aligns with user needs and business goals. You will orchestrate the full lifecycle of these products from early ideation through scaling, balancing innovation with operational pragmatism. You will make high-impact decisions about resource allocation, prioritization, and timing across multiple bets, while maintaining a clear view of long-term platform potential. You will partner deeply with Product, Design, Learning Science, and AI to translate ambitious concepts into robust, scalable engineering solutions. You will build and lead a high-performing, cross-functional engineering organization that thrives in a fast-paced, experiment-heavy environment. You will champion data-driven decision-making and foster a culture where learning, mentorship, and continuous improvement are paramount. You will ensure that the systems you build deliver meaningful educational impact to millions of users around the world.

Key facts

What you'll do

Define and execute the technical strategy for Music and Chess products, aligning engineering efforts with business objectives and user value.

Partner with Product, Design, Learning Science, and AI to shape product direction, define success metrics, and validate hypotheses through experimentation.

Lead and grow multiple engineering director-level teams, providing mentorship, career development, and technical guidance.

Architect and scale systems for AI-based content creation, neural bots, and interactive gameplay built on Unity and other modern technologies.

Establish and drive standards for operational excellence, including reliability, performance optimization, and developer productivity across the engineering organization.

Champion a culture of experimentation, owning the end-to-end management of high-volume A/B tests and rapid iteration cycles.

Build and refine engineering hiring standards, leveling frameworks, and talent systems to attract and retain top-tier technical leaders.

Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to clarify priorities, resolve dependencies, and navigate ambiguity in dynamic environments.

Evaluate new subject opportunities, assessing technical feasibility, risk, and potential impact before committing significant resources.

Own key metrics for user engagement, retention, and learning outcomes, ensuring that product investments drive measurable business results.

Lead the development of reusable platforms and infrastructure that accelerate future subject launches.

Foster an inclusive, high-trust team environment that encourages diverse perspectives and rigorous debate.

Represent Duolingo's New Subjects vision to executive leadership and external partners, articulating progress and strategic pivots.

Requirements

Have at least 8 years of progressive experience in software engineering leadership, with a demonstrated ability to manage growing teams and complex product lines.

Possess deep expertise in building and scaling consumer-facing web and mobile applications, with a strong track record of delivering high-availability, high-performance systems.

Bring extensive experience managing and developing products that operate at massive scale, serving millions of users while maintaining rigorous quality standards.

Have a proven history of partnering closely with executive leadership to define product strategy and making data-informed decisions in ambiguous situations.

Demonstrate substantial experience with AI and LLM technologies, including integrating these capabilities into production products and fostering an AI-first engineering culture.

Show a strong commitment to building diverse, inclusive, and high-performing teams, with experience in hiring, leveling, and making difficult talent decisions.

Have significant experience leading highly iterative, experiment-driven product organizations, managing multiple concurrent initiatives and stakeholders.

Be comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment, balancing strategic thinking with hands-on technical execution and clear communication.

Nice to have

Experience launching entirely new product categories within a large consumer tech company.

Background in education, gaming, or creative content domains, with an understanding of pedagogical principles and user motivation.

Expertise in real-time interactive systems, game engine technologies such as Unity, and backend infrastructure for content-heavy applications.

Experience managing distributed engineering teams across multiple time zones and working effectively in hybrid or remote-first settings.

Practical notes

This role is based in our New York, NY office on a hybrid (4+1) work schedule, requiring presence in the office at least one day per week.