AI Research Director, Duolingo English Test

This position is remote based in the United Kingdom.

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. But we’ve got more left to do — and that's where you come in!

Duolingo is the most popular language-learning application in the world, with over 500 million users and over half a billion exercises completed daily. Beyond our core learning product, we have also entered into literacy with Duolingo ABC and English proficiency testing with the Duolingo English Test.

We are passionate about educating our users, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. We offer meaningful work, limitless learning opportunities, and collaboration with world-class minds. Come brighten your life and over half a billion more!

Our mission is to make education fun and accessible to everyone in the world. As Research Director, you will be pioneering new technologies for the Duolingo English Test, the world’s first online adaptive standardized language test, accepted by more than 4,000 institutions.

We are looking for a thought (and people) leader in AI, with a track record of delivering products and features based on your work. You will co-lead the Assessment R&D Area, which is a cross-functional collection of AI scientists, linguists, psychometricians, engineers, and others. This interdisciplinary group is advancing the field of “digital first” assessments: synthesizing natural language processing and machine learning with cognitive science and human-computer interaction. In many cases, you’ll need to invent entirely new methodologies to capitalize on our unique data. We are a diverse and motivated team, building software used by millions of people around the world, every day!

You Will...

• Help cultivate a shared team of AI researchers and engineers, leading by example through hiring, coaching, mentoring, and hands-on career development.
• Set the R&D agenda for the Duolingo English Test and other assessments in collaboration with educational measurement experts, including industry-leading work in automatic item generation, test scoring, and adaptive administration.
• Take a human-centered approach to algorithmic fairness, privacy, and access.
• Represent Duolingo and its research to diverse stakeholders, including artificial intelligence, educational measurement, university admissions, and government audiences.
• Support Duolingo in formulating a technical vision and strategy for next-generation assessment technology.

You Have...

• A creative, interdisciplinary, and entrepreneurial approach to R&D.
• A desire to develop great people and phenomenal products.
• A history of taking research from the lab into production.
• Excellent presentation, interpersonal, and critical thinking skills.
• PhD (or equivalent industry experience) in computer science, AI, NLP, or a related field.
• Ability to travel to Pittsburgh, PA at least once per quarter.

Exceptional Candidates Will Have...

• 10+ years of post-doctoral and/or industry experience across a variety of AI/ products.
• A portfolio of relevant publications or open-source projects.
• A desire to keep up with the field by attending or publishing at relevant conferences (ACL, EMNLP, KDD, AAAI, ICLR, CVPR, InterSpeech, etc.)
• Familiarity with educational and/or assessment technologies is a plus!

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We will do everything we can within reason to make sure that your interview takes place in an environment that fairly and accurately assesses your skills. If you need assistance or accommodation, please contact your recruiter.

Because Duolingo requires all employees to return to work from an office, all employees will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remain employed unless they have an exemption to vaccination pursuant to a required reasonable accommodation. This is so that our employees feel safe in the office.

Duolingo is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

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