Staff Technical Program Manager

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility Staff TPM role at the center of one of Duolingo's most strategic engineering initiatives: dramatically reducing the effort required to get results and doubling developer productivity across the organization.

You will:

• Define and drive the roadmap for doubling developer productivity across Duolingo , aligning engineering, product, and data science around a shared vision, sequencing the work, and holding teams accountable to measurable outcomes.
• Lead organizational change management as engineering teams adopt new ways of working , building alignment, communicating progress to executives and ICs alike, and helping teams internalize new processes and tooling.
• Partner closely with Developer Amplification (DevAmp) Area leads to accelerate developer productivity through AI-powered tooling, ensuring programs have clear goals, measurable impact, and sustained momentum across engineering squads.
• Lead the delivery of strategic, high-impact cross-functional initiatives from conceptualization to launch, operating with significant autonomy across multiple workstreams.
• Partner with engineering, product, data science, QA, and executive leadership to ensure communication and alignment; serve as the connective tissue between Duolingo strategy and day-to-day execution.
• Leverage deep technical expertise to develop detailed plans with key milestones and goals, identify and mitigate risks, resolve dependencies, remove blockers, and ensure timely and smooth launches.
• Establish and evangelize engineering practices that drive step-change improvements in developer productivity , coaching engineering leads and TPMs on new ways of working and how to measure their impact.
• Drive decisions when difficult tradeoffs must be made, including those with cross-organizational or company-level impact; model how to navigate hard problems with analytical rigor and a calm, decisive presence.
• Identify systemic issues impacting delivery efficiency company-wide and take swift, collaborative action to resolve them.
• Guide and develop other TPMs and engineering leads, scaling best practices across teams and continuously improving how the organization operates.

You have:

• Proven experience as a TPM, Engineering Lead, or Engineering Manager.
• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or equivalent degree or experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale technical transformation programs with measurable organizational impact , you've shifted how engineering organizations think and work, not just shipped projects.
• Strong executive presence and influence in a matrix environment , able to build conviction among skeptics, align competing priorities across senior leadership, and drive decisions without direct authority.
• Deep technical credibility , enough to challenge architectural assumptions, spot delivery risks early, and earn the trust of strong engineers.
• Proven ability to build and implement detailed plans that account for ambiguity, dependencies, and technical complexity , and to re-plan quickly when things change, without losing team confidence or momentum.
• A track record of standing up new programs or practices from scratch in ambiguous, high-visibility environments.
• Ability to relocate to Seattle, WA.

Exceptional candidates will have:

• Strong knowledge of software engineering, systems engineering, or similar hands-on technical experience, in addition to program management experience.
• Strong conceptual fluency in LLM-based products, AI infrastructure, and developer AI tooling - enough to ask the right questions, challenge technical assumptions, and identify delivery risks.
• Experience running programs that include machine learning, large datasets, or AI/ML infrastructure.
• Experience working with AWS at scale.

The offered salary is dependent upon several factors, including work experience, skills, and internal peer comparisons.

Salary Range: $181,600-$272,400 USD