Senior Data Scientist, Learning

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 educating our users, experimenting with big ideas, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. You’ll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds — while doing work that’s both meaningful and fun.

Join our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world. 

Read our blog to learn more.

About the role...

We’re looking for an outstanding technical leader in Data Science who specializes in product analytics, statistical modeling/machine learning, and causal inference to advance data-centric decision-making at Duolingo. The ideal candidate will collaborate closely with leadership in Engineering, Product Management, and Learning (Video Call with Lily) to develop and deliver metrics, attribution models, and actionable business analyses. They will evangelize scientific methods and influence strategic business decisions, with an appreciation for the behaviors of Duolingo users. They will be a strong advocate and mentor for the Data Science & Analytics team and help advance their learning, creativity, and growth.

  You will...

• Lead the cycle of turning ideas into production-grade data science solutions, ensuring long-term viability and robustness.
• Apply advanced analytical methods, causal inference, machine learning, and AI to model user behavior, and partner with product and engineering teams to build scalable business frameworks and solutions.
• Drive the data lifecycle: Understand, extract, transform, and validate data across multiple sources via relevant tools (e.g., SQL, R, Python).
• Partner with data engineers and business intelligence to turn insights into data products (e.g. data pipelines, algorithms, self-service dashboards).
• Communicate findings effectively to executive partners and collaborate with product teams to integrate insights into strategy and decision-making.
• Stay on top of developments in statistical methods and LLMs, and drive continuous improvement in internal tools and analytical practices at Duolingo.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior data scientists, encouraging an environment of excellence, innovation, and collaboration.

  You have...

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., Data Science, Economics, Business Analytics, Information Systems, or a related quantitative field).
• 5+ years of work experience using analytics to solve product or business problems, coding (e.g., Python, R, SQL), querying databases, and statistical modeling.
• Outstanding problem-solving abilities and the capacity to translate complex data into actionable insights.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical partners.
• Able to relocate to and work in our New York office. 

  Exceptional candidates will have...

• Advanced degree in Data Science, Economics, Statistics, or an equivalent quantitative field.
• Strong experience in developing and implementing an analytic vision to solve business-relevant problems.
• Ability to lead multiple complex work streams and develop partnerships across organizational boundaries.
• Experience with "big data" and cloud computing technologies like Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery.
• Effective storytelling ability with experience leading business conversations with senior leadership.
• Experience training machine learning models and deploying them in production.
• Familiarity with AI tools such as Cursor, a knack for prompt engineering, and a desire to continue to innovate and learn in AI.
• Experience at a high-growth company that has undertaken an IPO.
• An impressive Duolingo XP or streak!