Duolingo is hiring devs who can help it with language learning gamification

Duolingo is hiring game developers and others who can help it with language learning gamification.

Bob Meese, chief business officer at Duolingo, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the company will highlight these jobs as it attends the Game Developers Conference next week. The company has dozens of openings, across all disciplines, especially engineering, design, and product.

One of the key roles that the company is hiring for is creative technologist, Meese said. Meese said that making the game-like language learning application can help sharpen the skills of developers. That’s important, as more than 8,000 game developers have lost their jobs via layoffs this year. Most of the roles are in Pittsburgh or New York, as the company has an in-office work policy.

“There are things happening here and it goes to what category do we fit in as a company,” said Meese, who has been at the company for eight years. “For better or worse, we don’t cleanly fit in any category. We’re an educational product, but we look more like a game. A lot of people talk about playing Duolingo. It’s like a single-player experience and then it’s evolving toward more of a multiplayer experience. We’ve made the product more social over time.”

Duolingo was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2011 by professor Luis von Ahn, who previously founded reCAPTCHA and sold it to Google. He started it with grad student Severin Hacker. In June 2012, they launched their web application. They rolled out an iOS app in October 2012 and an Android app in May 2013. In 2013, Duolingo won iPhone app of the year.

“We have some things we’re working on that look more like games even more so than the current experience. Our CEO teased it. We’re calling this feature ‘adventures,'” Meese said “We’re games adjacent and in some ways Duolingo is becoming more like a game.”

As of the fourth quarter of 2023, Duolingo has 88 million monthly active users, 27 million daily active users and seven million subscribers. It has grown to more than 700 employees.

They got to those metrics by launching subscriptions in 2017, leaderboards in 2019, stories in 2019, additional characters in 2020, a new homescreen and learning path in 2022, and new math and music lessons in the main app in 2023.

Just like in gaming, Meese said there are people with crazy achievements. They’re power users who have developed daily habits, and they are rewarded with achievements.

Meese said the company’s product development is mainly organized into features that improve learning, features that improve user retention and engagement (these are the most game-like), and features that improve monetization. The company also needs the perspective of game devs for features that primarily improve learning efficacy, DuoRadio feature to practice listening, stories for advanced learners, advanced English learning course and more.

It also has features that primarily improve user retention and engagement, such as leaderboard, achievements and more. There are openings for a gaming program manager, and founder roles for Design PIT, Design NYC, Engineering PIT, Engineering NYC, Product PIT, and Product NYC.

“We’re trying to increase our visibility in the games industry,” Meese said.

Meese has a talk about some of these topics at GDC on March 20 at Wed 5 p.m. at the Industry Stage in the Expo Floor of the South Hall. One of the attractions of finding “gaming adjacent” companies like Duolingo is that they can be more stable. Just about every year, Duolingo has been growing by about 100 people. The company has opened offices in Seattle and Detroit.

“Game companies can be in a very red ocean. By contrast, this business is healthy. For somebody looking for a healthy business that’s growing, this is it,” Meese said. “And you’re deploying your skills in a way that helps make the world better and helps people improve themselves. That can be really powerful.”

Duolingo has a table at Moscone West, Level 2 at the GDC next week on Monday and Tuesday.