Staff Technical Program Manager
Leads high-impact technical programs for the Duolingo English Test, coordinating engineering, product, data, legal, security, and external stakeholders from planning through launch. Requires staff-level autonomy, strong technical communication, and experience managing complex programs in agile software environments.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead strategic, high-impact cross-functional initiatives from conceptualization through launch.
- Lead complex technical programs within the Duolingo English Test domain, translating regulatory, compliance, and business requirements into technical plans and durable execution.
- Drive strategy across multiple workstreams with significant autonomy and leadership through ambiguity and external scrutiny.
- Partner with engineering, QA, product management, data science, legal, security, executive leadership, and external stakeholders to ensure communication and alignment.
- Develop detailed plans with milestones and goals; identify and mitigate risks, resolve dependencies, remove impediments, and ensure timely launches.
- Identify and resolve issues affecting delivery efficiency across the company.
- Drive decisions involving difficult tradeoffs and cross-organizational or company-level impact.
- Guide and train others on standard processes, scaling guidelines, and improvements to product and engineering operations.
Requirements
- Strong experience as a technical program manager, engineering lead, or manager.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, or equivalent experience.
- Experience with commercial software products and underlying infrastructure, including client-service architecture.
- Strong technical communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders at all organizational levels.
- Ability to create and implement detailed plans accounting for ambiguity, dependencies, and technical complexity in an agile environment.
- Ability to adapt plans to new information while maintaining execution and morale.
- Leadership and influence in a matrixed environment, including influencing senior leaders without direct authority.
- Ability to set strategy and direction across multiple teams or workstreams with limited direction.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced startup environment.
- Self-direction and interest in learning new techniques and guiding others.
- Ability to relocate to Pittsburgh, PA.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience in software engineering, systems engineering, or a related field in addition to program management.
- Deep experience with AWS.
- Experience coordinating globally distributed teams and technical projects.
- Experience with machine learning and large datasets.
- Ability to use data to answer business questions and develop business recommendations.
Compensation
- Base salary range: $181,600–$272,400 USD.
- Base salary is supplemented by equity compensation.
Skills
Program Management, AWS, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Agile, Machine Learning, Data Analysis, Infrastructure, Client-Service Architecture
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