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The Pillars of an Award-Winning Program
Duolingo was selected as a 2023 Campus Forward Award Winner for their unwavering commitment to seeking out and hiring early career talent, their emphasis on diversity & inclusion, and investments in nurturing and retaining the next generation of talent. Please see below for the highlights of their approach to early career recruitment.
Demonstrated Investment in Early Career Hiring
Duolingo’s founders met at Carnegie Mellon University, and directly recruited many of Duolingo’s earliest employees from universities. What was first an organic recruitment opportunity has developed into a thoughtful and extremely focused strategy. Duolingo invests resources into the growth and development of its interns and new graduates, who are not only incredibly skilled but incredibly mission-driven. Over the past 10 years, Duolingo’s new graduates have consistently grown into leaders within the company, and the tech industry at large. When a student joins Duolingo, they know they will have the support of their mentors, teams, and executives to grow into the leaders of tomorrow.
Innovative and Multi-Faceted Approach to University Recruitment
Duolingo’s University Recruiting team focuses on building genuine connections with students at a personal and global scale. The team fully embodies one of Duolingo’s operating principles of “take the long view”. Over the years, the University Team has built deep relationships with groups focused on increasing underrepresented talent within tech — including national organizations and student-run clubs. Additionally, the team takes an innovative and impactful approach to ensure students have access to function-led and recruiting-led interview prep at all stages of the process to ensure students are learning best practices from experts within their field of interest and from their recruiting partners. Duolingo believes in creating an equitable and engaging process for everyone, much like its core products.
Overarching Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging is at the heart of Duolingo’s mission toward global access to education, and is embedded in every aspect of Duolingo’s recruitment efforts, from partnering with national organizations that are increasing representation in tech to creating an early access internship focused on skill-building for underrepresented students in tech. Duolingo’s most impactful early career efforts are largely focused on (1) preparing students from historically underrepresented groups in tech for their interview processes at Duolingo and beyond through employee-led technical and behavioral interview prep summits and workshops throughout the year, and (2) providing early access to technical learning and professional development internship programming via its “Thrive” internship, targeted at rising juniors from underrepresented communities in tech.
Impactful Internship Program
At Duolingo, interns not only get to spend their summer experiencing the playful and mission-centric culture at one of the company’s three US-based offices, but they also build meaningful relationships across the cohort + company, springboard their professional skills with 1:1 mentorship, and are fully integrated into product teams to develop unique projects aligned with company goals. The DuoIntern cohort is made up of interns spanning two programs, one preparing students for the next. The “Thrive Program” is a 10-week internship program targeted at rising juniors from historically underrepresented populations in tech, focused on developing early technical and professional skills, and the “Graduating Intern Program” is a 12-week internship targeted at rising seniors, focused on preparing students for successful transition into full time “Duos”. This year, Duolingo’s personalized approach to its intern programming resulted in a 76% conversion rate for the both programs, at an 86% offer acceptance rate.
Growth and Development of the Next Generation of Talent
Duolingo is a company built by early career talent, all the way down to the PhD candidate and professor relationship that the company was co-founded on. Duolingo has always prioritized hiring early career talent, finding joy and understanding in the investment that ultimately grows its most impactful company leaders. (Even Duolingo’s Chief Product Designer was once a Duolingo intern!) While Duolingo boasts clear and limitless career paths for early career talent at a company level, and function-specific programs like the first-year Associate Product Manager rotational program, the magic of Duolingo’s early career experience is in the impactful work and direct access to executive leadership that comes with Duolingo’s lean, 650-person community. From the day they start, new grads are personally introduced to each company executive, and included in social cohorts based on start dates. This is designed to kickstart their engagement in social programming, such as Duolingo’s 70+ internal clubs and organizations.