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Job Summary:
Duolingo is on a mission to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. They are hiring a Staff Program Manager to lead complex, cross-functional programs, ensuring clear execution and alignment among senior stakeholders while managing risks and dependencies. The role involves coaching teams, improving processes, and collaborating closely with Brand/Marketing to execute multi-channel campaigns.
Responsibilities:
• 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 trade‑offs; 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 multi‑workstream campaign operations without dulling creativity—coordinating cross‑channel deliverables and external partners to hit dates and quality bars.
Qualifications:
Required:
• 10+ years of 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.
• Data‑informed 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 documentation‑first 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.
Preferred:
• 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.
Company:
Duolingo is a language-learning education platform that offers 98 total courses across nearly 40 distinct languages. Founded in 2011, the company is headquartered in Pittsburgh, USA, with a team of 501-1000 employees. The company is currently Late Stage.