Director of Learning Design, Immersive Language Learning

Duolingo • New York, NY

41d

About The Position

As Director of Learning Design for Immersive Language Learning, you will be the pedagogical and creative lead for Duolingo's long‑form, narrative, and audio‑first experiences - Stories, DuoRadio, Adventures, and future immersive formats. You'll set the vision for how compelling storytelling, design, and audio can accelerate real‑world language gains, and you'll turn that vision into products millions love. You'll lead a multidisciplinary team of learning designers and partner closely with product leadership to ship delightful, effective, and distinctly Duolingo experiences at global scale. This job is based in Pittsburgh or New York.

Requirements

• Depth in language learning design: typically 10+ years designing consumer language learning products with proven impact at scale
• Creative instincts and taste: ability to shape narrative in immersive experiences and give specific, actionable creative feedback
• People leadership: 5+ years leading multi‑disciplinary teams; experience managing managers and setting high bars for craft and delivery
• Product sense: intuition for simple, lovable mobile experiences and how story, pacing, and mechanics can drive motivation
• Operational rigor: proficiency in large-scale content operations, QA processes, and tooling to maintain quality across multiple languages; ideally, experience with human‑in‑the‑loop AI workflows
• Outstanding communication: clear, kind, and persuasive across audiences, including executive and cross‑functional

Nice To Haves

• Graduate degree in Education, HCI, Applied Linguistics, SLA, TESOL, Linguistics, Learning Science, Cognitive Science, or a relevant language field
• Experience with storytelling, interactive fiction/branching narratives, or game narrative design, especially for educational purposes
• Proficiency in one or more languages beyond English and comfort reviewing content across multiple languages

Responsibilities

• Ship effective immersive learning at scale: partner with Product, Design, and Engineering to translate pedagogy into creative storytelling experiences that build listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills
• Lead and develop a world‑class team of learning designers, leveling up their craft, velocity, and effectiveness
• Leverage AI thoughtfully: oversee human‑in‑the‑loop workflows to generate high-quality learning content where Duolingo characters come to life and our distinctive brand voice is reflected
• Establish content quality systems (guidelines, rubrics, review workflows) that ensure linguistic accuracy, high creative bar, cohesive storytelling, difficulty calibration, and high quality across languages
• Drive an experiment‑led practice: foster an outcome-focused culture, confirm hypotheses via A/B tests, align on success metrics, and assist with analyzing learning and engagement impact
• Explore what's next: develop and validate roadmaps for novel immersive experiences that extend Duolingo's impact

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Industry: Publishing Industries
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees