Product Design, Animation, Illustration Jobs at Duolingo

Design at Duolingo

Welcome to the Design Department!

Design is the second-largest function at Duolingo, and what makes us unique is how we value the technical side of things just as much as the creative side.

We believe our best work comes from our product designers, writers, researchers, and artists collaborating closely together and building off each others’ ideas and originality, and you see this come to life in the unexpectedly funny and delightful experiences we create.

We’re a caring, hard-working group, and we often say, “Hard on the work, gentle on the people.” We make every pixel count while still bringing a wholesome but unhinged approach to our design, all in service of our amazing mission.

On the blog

Vikram's redesign: From negative stereotypes to authentic representation](https://blog.duolingo.com/vikram-redesign/?utm_source=https%3A%2F%2Fcareers.duolingo.com%2F&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=vikramblog_cs_091924) How we turned Duo's butt into a viral Super Bowl commercial](https://blog.duolingo.com/super-bowl-commercial-2024/?utm_source=https%3A%2F%2Fcareers.duolingo.com%2F&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=superbowlblogdesign_cs_091924) Interviewing with Duolingo’s Product Design team](https://blog.duolingo.com/product-design-interviews/?utm_source=https%3A%2F%2Fcareers.duolingo.com%2F&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=productdesigninterviewsblog_cs_091924)

#design

[At #Duolingo, we routinely say, “Show don’t tell”.
\ This means we favor prototypes to pitch decks, short docs with visuals and graphs to pages and pages of dense prose. This keeps us focused on delivering great work (instead of justifying it) and demonstrating the results of our work, not the story of its effort.
\ When we review product, our PMs and designers don’t show giant specs and dump minutes worth of context at the top—they immediately start showing real screens of the feature in action. As Mig says, “The best way to present work is to pretend like you’re showing it to real humans who use Duolingo.” Users don’t get a pre-read when they use our products, so everything should feel intuitive and simple, without requiring tutorials or explanations.
\ We recently published the Duolingo Handbook, which talks more about this principle, and the others that drive our work at Duolingo. This was a massively fun project for design to work on—you can tell, because the illustrations are too good. Here are a few of my favorites.
\ Read the handbook here: https://lnkd.in/eJ8EGJzJ
\ #onlyatduolingo\

[ICYMI, Duo had a cold. He was *sick* of reminding learners to do their lessons.
\ Here’s something that only happens at](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7246927803407888384/) Duolingo: designers obsess over a booger. We had an icon designed, ready to ship it, saw it in the builds… andLuis von Ahnpushed us to amp it up just a little bit more.

It’s rare to work at a tech company where the executive team cares about and empowers creatives. Thanks to Luis for constantly encouraging us to go bigger and booger-ier 🤧 #onlyatduolingo

After years of leasing WeWorks, we finally opened our first this-feels-like-home office in NYC. Tl;dr, it’s amazing. And a big reason it’s so amazing is because of the close collaboration between Taylor Gittings and more from Design, our Workplace team, and our architects to create delightful physical spaces that really feel like Duolingo. There’s one space in particular I’m obsessed with: the moving portrait gallery in our lobby.

Fun fact: Originally, the plan was to have a waiting room outside of Luis’ office where a portrait of Lily would follow you while you moved around the room. We were poking fun at those waiting rooms at universities where you’d feel “watched” by old portraits of stoic past presidents.

Long story short, we couldn’t quite make that space happen but we loved the idea of animated portraits. The original lobby space design was pretty neutral, but we wanted it to feel as welcoming and delightful as learners feel when they open our app. So our partners at Rapt Studio thought: “What if we turn one portrait of Lily into an entire gallery?”

The result: eight animated portraits inspired by historical art eras, displayed on huge 75” monitors and framed with gigantic custom frames. We were going to source old museum-style wooden frames, but that proved difficult and costly. Going with 3D-printed frames (s/o to Charlie Barber) not only saved us money, they allowed us to incorporate flourishes and details from the Duolingo world into the frames themselves—if you look closely, you can see little streak flame motifs and other detailed touches throughout. And in the center of it all: a faux-marble 3D-printed statue of our very own Duo holding a streak flame 🔥

I loved Taylor’s vision: “New York City is known for so many museums, and this is our homage to that. Also, it’s such a fun, unexpected lobby. You always expect to see a security desk or a boring waiting area with a map… but this is a much more inviting way to bring anyone into our space. They can really immerse themselves in our world and environment.”

This portrait gallery is the epitome of our operating principle, Strive for Excellence, and encapsulates everything we value at Duolingo: unexpected quirk and fun, an insanely high attention to detail, and always keeping our learners (or viewers) in mind. You could walk by these portraits every day for weeks and notice something new each time.

I could go on and on about the gallery, but just take a look at these images (designed by Shir Pakman andGregory Hartman animated by Tyler Morgan)! And read more about the design over at Fast Company: https://lnkd.in/dhw7Py4m

#onlyatduolingo

Recent talks

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