Machine Learning Research Scientist

Key Skills

Java Programming, Python Programming, C++, C Programming, Scala Programming, MATLAB Programming, R Programming, NeurIPS

Job Description

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. While we take our mission to heart, we don’t take ourselves too seriously; we are creative, and we have fun at work every day. If this sounds like you, then come help us build the next-generation learning company!

Do you want to help us define the future of language assessment?

Our mission is to make education fun and accessible to everyone in the world. As an ML Research Scientist, you will be responsible for developing new technologies for the Duolingo English Test, the world’s first online adaptive standardized language test, accepted by more than 3000 institutions!

We are looking for an experienced AI/ML scientist with a track record of delivering products and features based on your work. You will play a key role in developing new interactive test items through interdisciplinary research that advances the field: synthesizing natural language processing, speech technology, computer vision, psychometrics, and so on. 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, and would love to have you join us!

You Will...

• Identify promising applications of AI/ML to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and user experience of “digital-first” assessments
• Prototype models, evaluate them with offline experiments, and implement solutions at scale to millions of users daily
• Take a human-centered approach to algorithmic fairness, privacy, and access
• Work with a multi-functional team of award-winning engineers, researchers, and designers to launch new product features
• You can see some prior research on the Duolingo English Test here:
• Machine Learning Driven Language Assessment (TACL, 2020)
• Duolingo English Test: Technical Manual (2020)

You Have…

• A creative, interdisciplinary, and entrepreneurial approach to R&D
• A history of taking your research from the lab into production
• Excellent presentation and interpersonal skills
• Strong debugging and critical thinking skills
• PhD (or equivalent industry experience) in computer science, ML, NLP, computer vision, human-computer interaction, etc.
• 5+ years of post-doctoral and/or industry experience
• Experience implementing ML systems in Python, Java, Scala, C/C++, etc.
• Ability to relocate to Pittsburgh, PA

Outstanding Candidates Will Have…

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