Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Score)

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

Duolingo Score reflects a learner's real language proficiency back to them. As the team lead/backend engineer on this small, high-impact team, you'll help make learners care about their score as much as they care about their streak.

You will:

• Lead a small team (3 engineers including yourself), owning both technical direction and day-to-day execution
• Touch critical backend services like user-tree-backend and session-generator, which define score calculation, proficiency modeling, and multiple score entry points across the learning app
• Collaborate on software projects with product and design
• Develop, release, and maintain backend services and/or infrastructure
• Work closely with multiple pillars , including Growth, Learning, and Score , to build your impact and visibility
• Lead individual and team project priorities and milestones, ensuring 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
• 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
• Prior experience leading or mentoring engineers on a small team

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. Salary Range: $182,800-$247,300 USD