Senior Scaling Operations Program Manager

Duolingo Duolingo · Consumer · New York, NY +1 · Scaling Operations

This role is for a Senior Scaling Operations Program Manager at Duolingo, focused on turning ideas into reliable, scalable systems. The role involves owning cross-functional programs, designing and implementing workflows, aligning engineering, product, and content partners, and measuring outcomes to improve speed, scale, and quality. It requires strong program management experience, technical fluency, and the ability to drive alignment and make ROI-focused decisions. While the role mentions AI-assisted scaling as an exceptional skill, the core responsibilities are in program and operations management, not direct AI/ML development.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead high-leverage, cross-functional programs from definition through launch and scale, creating clarity in ambiguous problem spaces and driving decisions across stakeholders in Engineering, Learning & Curriculum, and Product.
  2. Design and implement durable, tech-forward workflows and standards that reduce manual effort and enable reliable, repeatable execution at scale.
  3. Orchestrate execution across multiple teams, sequencing dependencies, managing risk, and establishing SLAs, KPIs, and operating cadences that keep programs on track.
  4. Build decision frameworks and business cases that balance impact, scale, cost, complexity, and confidence; model tradeoffs and recommend paths forward.
  5. Shrink “time to launch” and “time to scale” by introducing process improvements, documentation, and tooling that pave the road behind each release.

Skills

Required

  • 6+ years of program or operations management experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives end-to-end in product, platform, content, or operations domains.
  • A track record of designing and scaling systems or workflows that improved speed, quality, and efficiency across multiple teams or markets at the scale of millions of users.
  • Demonstrated ability to create clarity from ambiguity, drive alignment without authority, and make sound, ROI-focused decisions.
  • Strong operational rigor: you set clear goals, define SLAs/KPIs, manage risk and dependencies, and communicate crisply with executives and partners.
  • Technical fluency partnering with engineering to shape specs, roadmaps, and tooling for scale; comfortable with data to inform prioritization and tradeoffs.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills and experience working with stakeholders across Engineering, Learning & Curriculum, Product, and Finance.

Nice to have

  • Experience rapidly scaling operations or content across many languages, markets, or products, with measurable improvements in time-to-launch, time-to-scale or quality.
  • Proven wins turning 0-to-1 programs into durable systems, including establishing evaluation loops, automation, or expert workflows.
  • Experience building decision frameworks that enabled shifts to new operating models or technologies (e.g., AI-assisted scaling) with clear cost/quality outcomes.
  • Background working at the intersection of engineering, content, and product, maturing systems for reliability and observability at scale.

What the JD emphasized

  • scaling systems or workflows
  • scale of millions of users
  • create clarity from ambiguity
  • drive alignment without authority
  • ROI-focused decisions
  • operational rigor
  • technical fluency partnering with engineering
  • rapidly scaling operations
  • measurable improvements in time-to-launch, time-to-scale or quality
  • turning 0-to-1 programs into durable systems
  • AI-assisted scaling