37.2709, Jobs: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan; Hindi; Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Typology: Senior Learning Designer, Indian Languages, Duolingo

Wed Aug 19 10:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2709. Wed Aug 19 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2709, Jobs: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan; Hindi; Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Typology: Senior Learning Designer, Indian Languages, Duolingo

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Date: 18-Aug-2026
From: Bozena Pajak [bozena at duolingo.com]
Subject: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan; Hindi; Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics, Typology: Senior Learning Designer, Indian Languages, Duolingo

Job Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Job Title: Senior Learning Designer, Indian Languages
Job Rank: Other
Salary: $142,800—$193,200 USD

Specialty Areas: Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics; Typology

Specialty Language(s): Hindi (hin, hind1269)
                       Dravidian (drav1251)
                       Indo-Aryan (indo1321)

Description:
About the Role:
We are looking for a senior language educator and curriculum designer
with linguistics training, deep expertise in Hindi, and strong
knowledge of cultural and linguistic diversity in India and the whole
South Asian region. You will help shape Duolingo’s learning
experiences for Indian languages by using your pedagogical expertise,
cultural insight, and human-in-the-loop AI workflows. You’ll
collaborate closely with product, engineering, and design partners to
ship delightful, mobile-first learning that reflects the linguistic
and cultural richness of Indian languages and advances Duolingo’s
mission at scale. This role will help shape strategy and execution for
new and existing Indian language courses.
This role must be based in Pittsburgh, PA. No accommodations for
remote or other locations will be provided.
You will:
- Lead curriculum and learning design for one or more South Asian
languages (starting with Hindi), balancing delight, cultural
relevance, and measurable learning impact.
- Leverage human-in-the-loop AI workflows and prompt engineering to
generate and refine high-quality content efficiently while maintaining
Duolingo’s quality bar.
- Establish and maintain content quality systems (guidelines, rubrics,
review workflows) to ensure linguistic accuracy, difficulty
calibration, consistency, and brand voice across features and
languages.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Engineering, and
Scaling Operations to plan roadmaps, ship experiments, and build
scalable content generation processes.
- Contribute to strategy for teaching Hindi and other South Asian
languages, informed by an understanding of the wider regional
linguistic and cultural context.
- Help identify, recruit, onboard, and manage freelance educators,
linguists, cultural consultants, and language reviewers representing
relevant regions and communities.
You have:
- Hindi teaching curriculum expertise. You have deep proficiency in
Hindi and substantial experience teaching it as an additional
language. You understand its grammar, pronunciation, writing system,
registers, variation, and common learner challenges. You have
experience designing Hindi curricula.
- India-centered cultural and regional expertise. Your cultural
expertise is deepest in India, and you understand the broader South
Asian sociolinguistic and sociopolitical context. You can navigate
questions of language and identity, script, register, standardization,
multilingualism, regional variation, and cross-border language
communities with nuance.
- Knowledge and curiosity about India’s broader linguistic landscape.
You are familiar with Hindi’s place within the Indo-Aryan language
family, including its relationship with Urdu and points of comparison
with languages such as Punjabi and Bengali. You’re eager and able to
deepen your knowledge of other Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages
quickly, and to collaborate effectively with language experts when
working beyond your direct expertise.
- Linguistics training and typological awareness. You have a
background in linguistics, including language typology, and can apply
it to unfamiliar languages – working effectively with language experts
to identify learning challenges and design accurate, pedagogically
sound courses.
- Analytical thinking. You can evaluate linguistic questions
systematically, distinguish errors from acceptable variation, and make
clear decisions when conventions differ. You’re curious about
AI-enabled, human-in-the-loop systems and excited to learn how to use
them to support quality at scale.
- Creativity and product sense. You can transform serious learning
objectives into experiences that feel approachable, playful,
culturally meaningful, and motivating.
- Operational strength. You can lead complex projects, manage
dependencies, maintain rigorous documentation, and improve processes
without sacrificing quality.
- Excellent communication and collaboration. You communicate complex
linguistic and pedagogical concepts clearly to both specialists and
non-specialists. You give and receive feedback well and build
productive relationships across disciplines.
- Relevant academic or equivalent professional preparation. You have a
graduate degree (or equivalent practical experience) in Applied
Linguistics, Language Education, Linguistics, Instructional Design,
Learning Science, Indian or South Asian Languages, South Asian
Studies, or a related field.
Exceptional candidates will have:
- Working familiarity with Dravidian languages (particularly Telugu,
Tamil, and Kannada) and understanding of key typological and
pedagogical differences between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language
families.
- Experience building human-in-the-loop generative-AI workflows for
multilingual educational content.
- Experience designing consumer-facing mobile or app-based
language-learning products.

Application Deadline: (Open until filled)
Web Address for Applications:
https://careers.duolingo.com/jobs/8722385002
Contact Information:
        Kate Rinnan
        Email: kate at duolingo.com

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