Freelance Jira Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. It's a big mission, and that's where you come in!

At Duolingo, you'll join a team that cares about educating our users, experimenting with big ideas, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. You'll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds - while doing work that's both meaningful and fun.

Join our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world. 

Read our blog to learn more.

About the role...

We're hiring a Staff Program Manager to lead complex, multi-quarter programs that cut across teams and functions at Duolingo. You'll operate with significant autonomy to turn strategy into clear, scalable execution, align senior stakeholders, and build the systems that help teams ship impactful work on time. You will design plans, manage dependencies, surface and resolve risks early, and continuously improve our processes so we can move fast without sacrificing quality. This role is ideal for a program leader who brings crisp structure to ambiguity and elevates how cross-functional work gets done at scale. This position will be based in New York City, with 10-15% travel for shoots, partner meetings, and company events. You will also manage and develop a bench of freelance program managers who can help scale your impact.

  You will...

• Lead end-to-end planning and execution of multiple complex, cross-functional programs from inception through launch, reporting and retro. You'll help define scope, milestones, owners, success metrics, and decision logs.
• Build and maintain integrated program plans and timelines; proactively identify risks, manage dependencies, and drive mitigation plans to protect delivery and quality.
• Run effective operating rituals (kickoffs, status, reviews, exec updates, retros) that drive decisions, surface blockers, and create clear next steps for all partners.
• Align stakeholders across internal teams (e.g., Product, Engineering, Creative, Design, Analytics, Legal, and external partners and agencies) around goals, scope, and tradeoffs; communicate crisp status and recommendations to leadership.
• Create and improve lightweight processes, templates, and tools that teams actually adopt-raising the bar on documentation, visibility, and execution at scale.
• Track performance against program goals; partner with analytics/insights to synthesize learnings and feed them into future planning and operating models.
• Coach teams on program management best practices and uplevel execution across adjacent workstreams, even when not directly owning them.
• Manage and hire a bench of freelance program managers-scoping work, setting standards, and ensuring seamless integration with internal teams.
• Partner closely with Brand/Marketing to orchestrate multiworkstream campaign operations without dulling creativity-coordinating crosschannel deliverables and external partners to hit dates and quality bars.

  You have...

• Experience in program/project management leading high-impact, cross-functional programs end-to-end in consumer tech or a comparable fast-paced environment, including multi-workstream initiatives with senior stakeholders.
• Proven mastery of integrated campaign planning and timelining; strong ability to manage multiple concurrent programs, dependencies, and change with clarity and calm.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills; you simplify complexity, drive decisions, and influence across levels without authority.
• Demonstrated strength creating structure in ambiguity and designing systems/rituals that scale execution without unnecessary overhead.
• Datainformed mindset; you define success metrics and use results to shape next steps and recommendations.
• Deep proficiency with project/task management and tools (e.g., Asana, Jira, Google Workspace) and a documentationfirst approach.
• Experience orchestrating cross-channel marketing or product launch workflows in partnership with Brand/Creative and external partners; comfort navigating trade-offs to protect quality and timelines.
• Ability to work from New York City, with willingness to travel 10-15% for shoots and partner meetings.
• Experience leading contractors or freelancers and holding external partners to clear scopes, timelines, budgets, and quality bars.

  Exceptional candidates will have...

• People management experience, including hiring, developing, and performance-managing program managers (FTE or blended FTE/freelance teams) and building team-wide standards and career growth.
• Experience coordinating multi-market or multi-team launches with localization and/or external partner coordination.
• A track record building lightweight decision frameworks, retro processes, and operating cadences that stick across teams.
• Background working across multiple tracks of program management (e.g., Product, Design, Content/Localization, or Marketing) and connecting them into a coherent portfolio.
• Depth managing agencies and a freelance bench for integrated brand campaigns.
• Experience upleveling adjacent workstreams through coaching, templates, and tooling-improving execution beyond directly owned programs.