Last week, I celebrated 8 years at Duolingo. When I joined to help grow the Duolingo English Test, things were small enough that you could keep track of most of it in your head. We could count our accepting institutions. We could count how many tests were being taken. Fewer than 20 people worked on the DET. Our Pittsburgh “office” was a corner of the East Wing, which we then outgrew. More than once.
A lot has changed since then. The DET is now accepted by thousands of institutions around the world, and millions of people have taken the test. Our team spans the globe, with colleagues in Australia, the UK, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, and beyond. Along the way, we’ve hired so many talented people, each one raising the bar and strengthening the work. Building this team has been one of the great privileges of my career.
This anniversary also brings me back to how unsure I felt at the beginning. I came to Duolingo after nearly two decades in higher education, and I remember wondering whether I would really belong in a fast-moving tech startup. I had never worked closely with business people let alone engineers, product managers, or designers, and my professional life had unfolded in places that operated very differently.
What I found surprised me and, in many ways, is a testament to Duolingo itself. I was given space to learn, room to build, and the trust to bring my full background and full self into the work. Over time, that trust made it possible to shape a team and a culture that feels distinctly ours: deeply collaborative, proudly cross-functional, and grounded in the belief that the work should be both mission aligned and joyful. Many of the people I started working with as colleagues are now close personal friends, and that shared trust has been the force that allowed a small team to build something much bigger than any one of us.
Eight years in, what stands out most isn’t the metrics (though they still amaze me and most definitely can’t be kept track of in my head). It’s the people I get to work alongside and what we’ve built together, even as Duolingo has grown and changed.
Grateful every day for this team, this mission, and this very green ride. 💚
