Lead Technical Recruiter

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting for Product roles at all levels — ICs to senior leaders — building deep pipelines and consistently closing top talent.
• Be a true partner to the CPO, shaping hiring strategy, prioritizing roles, and helping define what great Product talent looks like at Duolingo.
• Lead and influence without direct authority, working across recruiting, sourcing, and business stakeholders to align processes, calibrate expectations, and drive outcomes.
• Drive sourcing strategy (roughly 25–30% of your time), going beyond inbound to build proactive outreach for senior and hard-to-fill roles.
• Use data to tell the story — diagnosing pipeline health, surfacing insights to leadership, and making decisions that balance speed with quality.
• Champion the candidate experience from first touch to offer close, making sure every interaction reflects Duolingo's brand and values.
• Build the infrastructure — whether that's interview frameworks, leveling guidance, or hiring playbooks — that scales beyond you.

Requirements

• Ability to work onsite in Pittsburgh, PA, Monday–Thursday, with Friday optional
• 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, with meaningful depth in Product hiring
• Experience partnering closely with senior leaders (VP/C-suite) to shape org strategy, not just fill seats
• A track record of hiring across levels — from PMs to Directors to VPs — with strong judgment on what "great" looks like at each
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, with the ownership mindset to create structure where it doesn't exist
• Strong data fluency — you know how to use pipeline metrics to drive conversations and influence decisions

Nice-to-haves

• Experience leading or mentoring a recruiting team, even informally
• Deep market knowledge of the Product talent landscape, including how to position Duolingo competitively
• A history of building repeatable hiring systems that improve quality and efficiency at scale

Compensation

Salary Range: $163,200—$244,800 USD (not inclusive of equity compensation and benefits)