Duolingo

Making Duolingo more social is an important pillar for our Product Team, which is why we recently launched a new feature called Friend Streak. 🔥 Friend Streak lets you share streaks with up to five friends on Duolingo, which not only makes learning more fun, but also more effective—learners with at least one Friend Streak are 22% more likely to complete their daily lesson. 💪🏼 Jackson Shuttleworth, our Group Product Manager, is here to answer any questions you have about how we built this feature. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀: 𝗔𝘀𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄👇🏼 💡 Here are four key learnings about building this feature: 1️⃣ Build an uber prototype: Creating an uber-prototype allowed us to get some sense of what design challenges we’d face and whether or not this feature would change user behavior. 2️⃣ Assume you’ll only ever build V1: We believe shipping “MVPs” (minimal viable products) can encourage us to release something that isn’t ready for learners. Instead, we frame all first launches as “V1.” (Version 1), implying that it’s a complete version, ready for users. 3️⃣ Design for scale, but be judicious about building that scale: The UI for a Friend Streak with just one friend would be very different from multiple shared streaks. By designing for multiples in the beginning, we could ensure that we’d be able to test different iterations of it without switching up the design every single time. 4️⃣ Optimize for your biggest hurdle: The biggest hurdle was getting learners to send the initial invite. If we made a 1% gain at that step, we’d have a much larger population exposed to the Friend Streak than if we only optimized for our power users (people with 5 Friend Streaks). #duolingo #productmanagement

We love math, on Wednesdays we wear 𝚙̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚔̶ green, and you 𝘤𝘢𝘯 sit with us. 💁🏼♀️ Do what Cady says: https://lnkd.in/d8tnNJHB #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #hiring

🗽 ICYMI: Our NYC office moved into the World Trade Center! We did a deep dive with Sean Devlin, our VP of Workplace and Real Estate, to learn more about his philosophy in building spaces that empower employees to do the best work of their lives. Sean came to Duolingo by way of Google, Netflix, and The Walt Disney Company, and has a deep history finding unique ways to reflect a company’s ethos in their physical space. 🦉 🤔 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁: We obsess in making our office amazing for our Duos (employees) as much we obsess in making our app amazing for our learners. 🫶 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀: We designed around rituals and how people plug into work in different ways and ensured an array of spaces to support that. We created a variety of liminal spaces with neurodiversity in mind to serve how people want to work. Every person and every day is different, so we designed spaces for focused work like our Library, collaborative work through unique meeting rooms, communal spaces like our lunch room, and creative spaces like our Gallery. 🫂 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴: We value our in-office culture as it connects our Duos on a deeper level. To help encourage this, everyone has dedicated desks to give people a sense of place and neighborhood. We are also populating our Library to include resources and books for our different ERGs and Social Clubs to make people feel at home. 🤝 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: We created spaces that enable Duos to connect with one another, whether it’s at the Green Bean cafe, our meal spaces, or in the hallways! 📍 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: 4 World Trade Center is a global place of commerce; what better place for a global company that encourages learning language, math, and music globally than here. With a view of the Statue of Liberty no less! Check out our NYC jobs here: https://lnkd.in/eNKU47zm #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #nyc

If you’re doing the The New York Times Mini Crossword today, we have a clue for you on 1 Down: O W L 🤓 We are self-proclaimed nerds at Duolingo and love crossword puzzles— we even have a social club who does the NYT crossword puzzle together every day at lunch. If you’re interested in joining Duolingo, here is a hint: https://lnkd.in/e9RYKx-R #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #nyt #crossword

Have you ever practiced anything for 3,000 days straight? Well, our learner Seth has, and we are here to celebrate him!!! 👏🤯🥳 A few weekends ago, Seth’s brother, Chad, threw him a surprise party at Duo’s Taqueria (yes, we also have a restaurant!) to commemorate this big moment. And Duo was there too! Seth completed his 3,000 day streak with Duo by his side. 🥹 Seth shared with us that he is working on learning more than 20 languages. “I want to be able to speak, read, write, listen, and translate—read in one language, and talk in another, all without thinking.” We have no doubt that he will accomplish that with the incredible determination he has. 💪 Thanks for inspiring all of us, Seth! 💚 If you want to work somewhere that inspires people to learn, apply here: https://lnkd.in/efCAm3jA #duolingo #onlyatduolingo

Life working at Duolingo is the opposite of Life with Duolingo. 😂 If you want to work with kind people and a persistent green owl, check out our jobs here: https://lnkd.in/eUrcQRvF #duolingo #onlyatduolingo #moodeng

ICYMI, we announced an exciting new feature at Duocon called Video Call, which allows you to practice real life conversations with our character Lily. Speaking practice is a top goal for learners, and for the last decade, we’ve looked for ways to close this gap on Duolingo. With Video Call, we now have a solution. Zan Gilani, our Principal Product Manager, shared some key learnings about building this feature: 1️⃣ Make it fun: Lily has a special memory system that means you get to talk about things that you find the most fun to talk about. You may also notice that as you advance through the course, Lily gets more and more sassy and sarcastic (as is her custom). 🙄 2️⃣ Make it engaging: We designed Video Call to be a little bit stressful. Make it too stressful (e.g. talking to native speakers) and it’s demotivating. But make it zero-stress and it’s boring (because it takes away the stakes). 😅 3️⃣ Make it effective: Lily is tailored to your difficulty level. At lower levels, she speaks slower, asks easier questions, and uses simpler language. ☺️ Currently, Video Call is available for Duolingo Max users on iOS (Android coming soon!) for folks learning English, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, with more to come. #duolingo #artificialintelligence #productmanagement #duocon

📣 Today is the day! 📣 Duocon 2024 is happening in t-minus 3 hours. ⏰ Join us at 12 PM ET to learn about new features and how they were made: https://lnkd.in/e8TTYYeK See you there! 🎉 #duocon #duolingo

Only at Duolingo do employees get free tickets to the Charli XCX Sweat Tour for work, even if you don’t work in marketing. The only requirement? Wear a green Duo mask to create a bird flock on the concert floor. 😎 Thanks Ad Age for interviewing Michaela Kron-Hags and Kelsey Dempsey about this activation. “We know that there’s something there when we tap into these specific fandoms and around these highly anticipated events in culture. So, when we heard about the ‘Sweat Tour,’ especially on the heels of ‘Brat Summer’—obviously, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about it—it really felt like such a natural opportunity for us to plug in. It didn’t hurt that Duo is the same shade of 'Brat green' as Charli XCX’s album cover, Kron said. And one song on the album, 'Talk Talk,' references the idea of speaking multiple languages with the lyrics, 'Talk to me in French / Talk to me in Spanish / Talk to me in your own made-up language / Doesn’t matter if I understand it.'” 💚 https://lnkd.in/ePYHhFDy #onlyatduolingo #duolingo

Come and get your Lily plushie, the perfect companion for your desk! Existential crisis sold separately. 😭 What should we make next? We’re hiring for a Head of Duolingo Store, our first in-house, dedicated hire in Consumer Products. 🤩 If this sounds like you, apply here: https://lnkd.in/ezfSJKjh 📈 Have merchandising experience growing an e-commerce store from 0 to 1 💚 Love the Duolingo brand and have a vision for how we can build brand love through merchandising 🎩 Thrive in an entrepreneurial environment and are equally comfortable analyzing a conversion funnel as you are ideating on product ideas 🎟 Create IRL events that build brand buzz ✨ Want to determine the future for our most fun merch! #duolingo #hiring #onlyatduolingo