Design Manager

Design the teams that design Duolingo.

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. With over 300 millions users, we are the most popular language learning application in the world. But we’ve got more left to do — and that’s where you come in! You’ll help lead the teams that create and define a cohesive user experience throughout products like Duolingo, the Duolingo English Test, and the Tinycards app, amongst others. From composing playbooks and frameworks to coordinating cross-functional work in a highly collaborative environment, you’ll work on high-impact products that are transforming the future of education.

This role reports to the VP of Design as a member of the Design team, the instrumental creative partner in most projects at Duolingo—from our mobile apps and website to the brand voice and email newsletters, and even community events. At Duolingo, we take pride in and agonize over crafting a user-friendly (and fun) experience for everyone.

You will...

• Hold regular 1:1s with your reports, provide feedback, help them grow their hard and soft skills, guide them in their career development, and advocate for their needs
• Help Duolingo source, recruit, hire, onboard, and retain a diverse team of world-class designers
• Work closely with Engineering and Product partners to design and manage efficient processes that lead to high quality work
• Be evaluated not only on team output, but also on your ability to enable and maintain a thriving, healthy team culture
• Collaborate with producers to prioritize and allocate work, ensuring work loads are fairly distributed and that the team has the opportunity to learn new things and stretch their skills
• Help lead workshops and facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and decision making for designers

You have...

• Design experience. Even though this role will not require pixel-pushing, you must have extensive professional experience as a designer and know what it takes to execute great design work.
• Coaching skills. You strike a balance between challenging your reports and nurturing them. You know how to deliver constructive feedback (and encourage your reports to do the same). You keep your reports fulfilled and moving forward in their careers. You’re a coach, not a boss.
• Strong communication. You’ve set the example throughout your career as an effective, honest, and personable communicator (both written and verbal). You’re comfortable and effective speaking in front of groups of all sizes.
• Empathy. You understand your teammates as people first, care about their lives outside of the office, and manage accordingly.
• Operational focus. Whether it’s allocating resources, managing processes, or staffing projects, you care about how things work and are constantly improving the efficiency and efficacy of your team.
• Frameworks. You not only solve difficult problems in isolation, but you develop frameworks that address and solve problems at scale. 
• Ability to travel to Duolingo's Pittsburgh, PA headquarters every quarter

Exceptional candidates will have...

• 5+ years experience working as an individual contributor designer
• 3+ years experience managing a team of designers
• Experience with illustration or animation (or both)
• Experience with leading user research sessions

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 your recruiter.

We aim to return to office, and as such are requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and have received any booster doses as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention