Duolingo

We have all sorts of characters (shocker, it’s not all about Duo!), and they each have quite particular working styles. ??? Lily is not impressed. Falstaff just wants to be on PTO. Oscar is a littleeee dramatic. And Duo is ALWAYS circling back. At Duolingo, no matter how you show up at work, the most important thing is that “you duo you”. Where are all of my Lilys at?! ?? #onlyatduolingo

We also can’t believe a candidate listed their Duolingo streak on their resume. But we love to see it. ?? We NEED to know, Bilal Ashrafov, did you hire this person?! Seems like they are pretty great given their impressive streak. ?? Thanks for the shoutout Newsweek! If you want to work on a product that people are THIS proud of, check out our open roles here: https://lnkd.in/eksVQmkH #onlyatduolingo?

One of the things we’re known for at Duolingo is making learning fun. We believe this can apply to our internal engineering documentation as well: it doesn’t have to be dry, it can be engaging, effective, and, ???????? ???? ??????, fun! That’s why Julie Wang created ?????????????????????? ??????????????????????: a series of comics that break down complex systems in an instantly digestible, highly engaging way. This initiative started as a Hackathon project with the goal of making technical knowledge accessible fast, and has since become a regular part of how we document our engineering processes so engineers can get up to speed with clarity and confidence. We also value this in our engineers: candidates must be able to translate complexity into clarity. Shoutout to Julie for leading the charge on this project! #onlyatduolingo #engineering #hackathon

“Better a hole in the company than an a**hole.” We are now 800+ people and every single person was carefully selected. We hire people who are exceptionally skilled in their craft and deeply aligned with our mission – no matter what. It’s tempting to hire for an urgent need or to simply fill a hole in the organization, but bringing in the wrong person to fill a need is never the right move. The good thing is, when you hire the right people, they tend to stick around. And our experience validates this: on average, Duos (our employees) stay here much longer than employees at most tech companies. Our annual retention rate is 90+%! Read more about our company culture here: https://lnkd.in/eGdzAB5n #onlyatduolingo

ICYMI we just launched our company handbook! ?? Why? Two main reasons: 1?? To help onboard Nuos (new employees) to our unique culture and ways of working. When we were a small company and everyone was working in the same office, it was easy to onboard new employees. However, now that we’ve grown to 850+ employees all over the world, we wanted to ensure that we’re scaling our culture. 2?? To share our learnings. We’ve made our principles and working style open source because we think everyone should have access to our playbook. Just like the Duolingo app, the Duolingo handbook is available for everyone to learn from. If you’re curious about how we built something unique in tech, take a look. ?? We’re sharing our not-so-secret recipe with everyone! #duolingo #onlyatduolingo?

Many tech companies like to keep their secrets close to their chest. At Duolingo, we do the opposite—we share our secrets. Why? We want to be generous with what we have learned. We’re here to make a positive difference in the world and that includes sharing our learnings for other companies to do the same. This is why we’ve released our internal Duolingo Handbook with the world. You can read about the principles that shaped our company, examples that we’ve learned from, and our playbook for how we operate. Here's the whole handbook for your taking. #onlyatduolingo

Duolingo’s recipe for success wasn’t copy-pasted from another tech company. We developed our own (and it’s quite tasty, we might add): The ingredients for developing a multi-billion dollar company with ~90+% employee retention rate includes: - Five principles that shape our company culture - Our playbook for building extraordinary things - One special ingredient (hint: he’s green) ?? Get our secret recipe here: https://lnkd.in/e3yXWgWn Bon appétit! ???? #onlyatduolingo

Our headline for Q4 earnings results: We closed out 2024 with a record-breaking quarter.????? - Surpassed 40 million DAUs (+51% from the prior year quarter) - Added our largest-ever number of net paid subscribers (+43% from prior year quarter) - Achieved our highest quarterly bookings, revenue and Adjusted EBITDA By taking the long view, we turned our momentum into sustained profitability. This comes from building a product people love and investing in our people. Read the full letter from CEO Luis von Ahn here ???? https://lnkd.in/eg3U4GHr

“Don’t do dumb sh*t.” In the early days, before we had principles and proven ways of building things, we had a saying: “Don’t do dumb sh*t.” We said this because short-term wins are tempting and powerful, but often not right for the company long-term. For example, in early years, when our user retention still wasn’t great, it would have been dumb to spend millions of dollars on a marketing blitz to temporarily grow our user base. We knew that to have any shot at meaningful success, we had to steer clear of gimmicks and tricks that might seem helpful in the short-term but hurt us down the road. Fast forward 14 years and we have 5 principles and a playbook we call The Green Machine. Read about how we operate in The Duolingo Handbook: https://lnkd.in/e9EQhWbt #duolingo

Many tech companies like to keep their secrets close to their chest. At Duolingo, we do the opposite—we share our secrets. Why? We want to be generous with what we have learned. We’re here to make a positive difference in the world and that includes sharing our learnings for other companies to do the same. This is why we’ve released our internal Duolingo Handbook with the world. You can read about the principles that shaped our company, examples that we’ve learned from, and our playbook for how we operate. Here's the whole handbook for your taking. #onlyatduolingo