Duolingo

We asked our CEO, Luis von Ahn, if we could have unlimited PTO.? His reply? ?? NO. ?? Lots of companies claim to have unlimited PTO, but is the PTO actually unlimited??Spoiler alert: NO. Many feel guilty or judged by their colleagues for taking “too much” of their “unlimited” PTO. And of course, PTO is still subject to manager approval, which does put a limit on what is allegedly unlimited. We don't have unlimited PTO, but we do hit over 90% of all PTO days actually getting used. Because we actually want Duos (our employees) to take their PTO — and more importantly feel good while doing it — we remove the ambiguity by giving Duos: ? 20 days of PTO (25 days after 5 years of tenure) ? 7 paid company holidays ? 2 weeks of winter break? This means Duos get roughly two months off each year! That’s plenty of time to get a tan… or a sunburn… guilt-free. #duolingo #onlyatduolingo

We asked our CEO, Luis von Ahn, if we could have unlimited PTO.? His reply? ?? NO. ?? Lots of companies claim to have unlimited PTO, but is the PTO actually unlimited??Spoiler alert: NO. Many feel guilty or judged by their colleagues for taking “too much” of their “unlimited” PTO. And of course, PTO is still subject to manager approval, which does put a limit on what is allegedly unlimited. We don't have unlimited PTO, but we do hit over 90% of all PTO days actually getting used. Because we actually want Duos (our employees) to take their PTO — and more importantly feel good while doing it — we remove the ambiguity by giving Duos: ? 20 days of PTO (25 days after 5 years of tenure) ? 7 paid company holidays ? 2 weeks of winter break? This means Duos get roughly two months off each year! That’s plenty of time to get a tan… or a sunburn… guilt-free. #duolingo #onlyatduolingo

We do serious work at Duolingo but don’t take ourselves too seriously. ?? Our Product team is a perfect representation of this. Our Product Managers (PMs) ship features to over 500 million learners, run thousand of experiments a year, are always ???? on ???? top ???? of ???? it, AND they are practically stand-up comedians. When we asked our PMs what was in their Notes, they came up with this. ?? What’s in your Notes?! #onlyatduolingo #productmanagement

POV: If Duolingo was Lumon Industries [read: IT’S NOT] ?? Do you know what YOUR innie does all day? Our employee?Mark Pavic just found out that his innie is actually the guy inside the Duo suit. ?? We hope he can enjoy all things equally. (Disclaimer: No Duolingo employees were actually severed in the making of this video). #onlyatduolingo #severance

It’s not an easy job, but someBUTTy’s gotta do it. Whether it’s supporting our app’s infrastructure as an engineer, or bringing delight to our learners as a designer, there are many different ways to work on Duo(lingo)’s backend. ?? Check out our job openings here → https://lnkd.in/eagFXNK4 #duolingo #engineering #design #backend

At Duolingo, we’re proud that our employee retention rate is around 90% (wild for tech). Most companies treat retention like a mystery. It’s not. Pay / benefits are obvious reasons why people stay in a job. Aside from that: what keeps you at a job? Drop a vote and tell us why in the comments! ??

?? Some people are dedicated to their streak. And then there are people who are ?????????????????? to their streak. Shoutout to Kento Okamoto for his amazing Duo artwork he created by going on a 14.4 mile, zigzaggy run to celebrate his 1,000 day streak. ?? Want to work on a product that people are obsessed with? https://lnkd.in/e-HhEUQy #onlyatduolingo

How many digits of pi can YOU recite? Well, we have a Duo (employee) Matthew Rathkey who can recite 126 digits of pi. ?? “I memorized over 100 digits of pi in middle school, and despite my best efforts I have yet to forget them!” How did Matt do it? The way he memorized it is similar to learning music; he learned it in chunks like phrases in a music piece. This works out well because Matt happens to be a learning designer on our music course. It also happens to be Matt’s first week on the job, so please give him a warm welcome with us! We could go on about this forever, but Matt, you’ll find yourself in good nerd company here. ?? Happy Pi Day! #onlyatduolingo #piday

If you’d rather play board games for social outings than drink or dance, we’re the right company for you. At Duolingo, we have over 140 social clubs, and our Games Club might be the most active, hosting over 300 gatherings a year. They meet every day at lunch, once a week in the evenings (for the more involved games), and at every company event like the holiday parties. So whether it’s Avalon, Wingspan, Catan, Battlestar Galactica, Spirit Island, or Terraforming Mars, Duos (our employees) love to engage in friendly (and sometimes fierce) competition. Thank you to Edward Fu for showing us some favorites from our vast games library, which was funded by the club members’ club budgets. And yes, just like at a regular library, Duos can even “check out” games to take home! #duolingo #onlyatduolingo

Some companies say they encourage creativity. At Duolingo, we really mean it. One year, for our annual hackathon, Nicolas Sacheri, Amia Ross, Martina Kampel, Aaron Tarnow, and Chris Jamrozy built a ?????? ?? ???????????? to help Boomers understand "rizz" and "skibidi." No cap. ?? Did it launch? No. Did it make us laugh? Absolutely. And that’s the point. We believe the best ideas come from playful, curious minds. Sometimes they turn into real features. Sometimes they just make work more fun! Should we actually build this though? ?? Watch the video to see it in action. #onlyatduolingo #hackathon