A Dream Job - Senior Software Engineer Duolingo Employee Review

5.0
Jul 12, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- The opportunity to actually contribute to a worthwhile mission of free language education for the work that all of your coworkers believe in 100%. - Working with talented, motivated, and intelligent people. - Code you write may be deployed and start benefiting millions within the same day. Duolingo provides the opportunity to have actual impact. - An excellent culture of camaraderie, anti-bureaucracy, and fun! Catered daily lunches with all coworkers around the same table. Dinner if you want to stay late. - Flexible hours, great benefits, awesome and frequent social events. - The honor of working for a down-to-earth, genuine, and truly compassionate CEO.

Cons

Many of us are slight workaholics because we enjoy our jobs so much. It is sometimes difficult to balance a personal life outside of work.

Explore other reviews about Duolingo

5.0
May 21, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Mission, smart and kind people, great work, hard working teams focused on results and delivering against an awesome mission. People push themselves and each other to learn and grow. Swarms of smart and creative problem solvers.

Cons

Small number of people are unhappy and instead of leaving they complain. A lot. I think it's like this everywhere but in a smaller company you feel it.

2.0
Jun 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good culture, great product, strong sense of ownership at all levels

Cons

Senior leadership has not found their rhythm. CEO calls pretty much all the shots. Engineering leadership is often invisible and lacks a cohesive tech strategy. Tech debt runs incredibly hot at this company and it often takes a major outage (did I mention CEO frequently joins the war rooms?) to get anything prioritized.

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