Duolingo

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

September 10, 2025

Neutral ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Online coding assessment and then phone chat with recruiter. After that, there are a few rounds of interviews, including a pair programming section where you debug a piece of the codebase.

Questions

Explain a project you worked on.

Was this helpful?

Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 13 interview experiences for the Duolingo Software Engineer role in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Success Rate

15%

Pass Rate

Duolingo's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive46%

Neutral38%

Negative15%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Duolingo's Software Engineer interview process in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Duolingo Work Experiences

Fantastic place to work and grow as an engineer.

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

December 28, 2022

Pros: - Generally a joy to show up to work every day. - Excellent engineering culture. Everyone I worked with seemed to be genuinely excited to be there, solving problems and working on new things. - Management highly values employee satisfaction and career growth. I had lots of opportunities to learn new skills and take on new challenges.

Cons: - Living in Pittsburgh isn't for everyone, and most positions are located there. - The company has grown a lot over the last few years, which has made for constant change in teams, people, processes, features, code/architecture – just about everything. This isn't really a con for the right type of person, and it may mellow out as the company transitions out of the late-stage startup phase, but be prepared for a very dynamic environment.

Fantastic place to work and grow as an engineer.

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

December 28, 2022

Pros: - Generally a joy to show up to work every day. - Excellent engineering culture. Everyone I worked with seemed to be genuinely excited to be there, solving problems and working on new things. - Management highly values employee satisfaction and career growth. I had lots of opportunities to learn new skills and take on new challenges.

Cons: - Living in Pittsburgh isn't for everyone, and most positions are located there. - The company has grown a lot over the last few years, which has made for constant change in teams, people, processes, features, code/architecture – just about everything. This isn't really a con for the right type of person, and it may mellow out as the company transitions out of the late-stage startup phase, but be prepared for a very dynamic environment.

Internship Experience

Software Engineer • Former Employee

November 9, 2025

Pros: Enjoyable Experience, Good work life balance, Good pay

Cons: Location, Pittsburgh is not the best

Internship Experience

Software Engineer • Former Employee

November 9, 2025

Pros: Enjoyable Experience, Good work life balance, Good pay

Cons: Location, Pittsburgh is not the best

nice but stressful

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: interesting industry, smart hardworking people, everyone is helpful, new ideas appreciated, great benefits

Cons: some teams can be pretty hectic. shipping faster is rewarded which creates the incentive to work longer hours especially if the rest of your team is doing so. promo/raise cycle recently reduced to 1x a year

nice but stressful

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: interesting industry, smart hardworking people, everyone is helpful, new ideas appreciated, great benefits

Cons: some teams can be pretty hectic. shipping faster is rewarded which creates the incentive to work longer hours especially if the rest of your team is doing so. promo/raise cycle recently reduced to 1x a year

Fantastic place to work and grow as an engineer.

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

December 28, 2022

Pros: - Generally a joy to show up to work every day. - Excellent engineering culture. Everyone I worked with seemed to be genuinely excited to be there, solving problems and working on new things. - Management highly values employee satisfaction and career growth. I had lots of opportunities to learn new skills and take on new challenges.

Cons: - Living in Pittsburgh isn't for everyone, and most positions are located there. - The company has grown a lot over the last few years, which has made for constant change in teams, people, processes, features, code/architecture – just about everything. This isn't really a con for the right type of person, and it may mellow out as the company transitions out of the late-stage startup phase, but be prepared for a very dynamic environment.

5.0
Fantastic place to work and grow as an engineer.
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
December 28, 2022
Pros: - Generally a joy to show up to work every day. - Excellent engineering culture. Everyone I worked with seemed to be genuinely excited to be there, solving problems and working on new things. - Management highly values employee satisfaction and career growth. I had lots of opportunities to learn new skills and take on new challenges.
Cons: - Living in Pittsburgh isn't for everyone, and most positions are located there. - The company has grown a lot over the last few years, which has made for constant change in teams, people, processes, features, code/architecture – just about everything. This isn't really a con for the right type of person, and it may mellow out as the company transitions out of the late-stage startup phase, but be prepared for a very dynamic environment.

Internship Experience

Software Engineer • Former Employee

November 9, 2025

Pros: Enjoyable Experience, Good work life balance, Good pay

Cons: Location, Pittsburgh is not the best

4.0
Internship Experience
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Pittsburgh, PA
November 9, 2025
Pros: Enjoyable Experience, Good work life balance, Good pay
Cons: Location, Pittsburgh is not the best

nice but stressful

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: interesting industry, smart hardworking people, everyone is helpful, new ideas appreciated, great benefits

Cons: some teams can be pretty hectic. shipping faster is rewarded which creates the incentive to work longer hours especially if the rest of your team is doing so. promo/raise cycle recently reduced to 1x a year

4.0
nice but stressful
Software Engineer • Current Employee
New York, NY
June 16, 2025
Pros: interesting industry, smart hardworking people, everyone is helpful, new ideas appreciated, great benefits
Cons: some teams can be pretty hectic. shipping faster is rewarded which creates the incentive to work longer hours especially if the rest of your team is doing so. promo/raise cycle recently reduced to 1x a year

Duolingo Interview Questions

Encrypt and Decrypt Strings

Implement functions to encrypt a string using a given key and decrypt the encrypted string back to its original form. The encryption method involves substitutions based on the key.

Minimum Number of People to Teach

Imagine a company where employees speak different languages. You need to teach a minimum number of people new languages so that everyone can communicate with at least one colleague.

ArraysGreedy Algorithms

K Radius Subarray Averages

You're given an array and a radius 'k'. Calculate the average of each subarray of length 2k+1 centered at each index, returning an array of these averages. If a subarray is too short (less than 2k+1 elements), mark its average as -1.

ArraysSliding Windows

Copyright © Taro