{"id":3845871,"url":"https://alion.io/job/duolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer","title":"Staff AI Research Engineer, Speech Recognition","company":{"id":19161,"name":"Duolingo","domain":"duolingo.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/duolingo-blog","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":84,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.636,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":55,"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["New York, United States","Pittsburgh, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":220800,"max":331200,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":331200},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Reinforcement Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Speech Recognition","optional":false},{"name":"Text-to-Speech","optional":false},{"name":"Tokenization","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-05T21:34:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-09","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T07:24:57Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. It’s a big mission, and that’s where you come in!\nAt Duolingo, you’ll join a team that cares about finding innovative solutions to complex technical problems, running countless experiments (300+ at a time!) with our massive user base to make data-driven decisions, and educating our users and employees alike. You’ll have limitless learning opportunities, mentorship and collaboration with world-class minds, and a variety of projects with large scopes - while doing work that’s both fun and meaningful. \nJoin our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world.\nAbout the role\nWe are looking for an experienced AI Research Engineer to join our Speech team. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record as an AI research engineer, with experience across various machine learning techniques, and a particular focus on speech modeling: ASR, TTS, speech-to-speech models, audio tokenization, and more. They will have experience at all levels of the ML stack, including feature engineering, developing training data, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, benchmarks and evaluations, deployment, and monitoring. On the Speech team, we’re training custom models to understand the speech of non-native learners, working closely to support product teams working on features like Video Call and the learning path.\n You will...\nJoin a full-stack team of frontend, backend, and other AI Research engineers, fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.\nContribute to the development and training of speech models and large-scale neural network models.\nCollaborate with cross-functional teams to understand their needs, to align the models’ outputs with company objectives.\nParticipate in and help drive strategic product and business decision making as a member of the Speech leadership group. \nStay up-to-date with the latest developments in machine learning, particularly in speech models, and apply this knowledge to drive advancements in our projects.\nMentor team members, providing guidance and support in their professional development.\nEnsure the delivery of high-quality, scalable, and efficient machine learning solutions.\n You have...\nProven experience as an AI research engineer, for example, in speech recognition, TTS, LLMs, or related fields.\nStrong background in training and fine-tuning large models in an applied setting.\nAdvanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field with a focus on machine learning or artificial intelligence, or equivalent experience.\nExcellent leadership and communication skills, with the ability to manage and inspire a team.\nDeep understanding of machine learning concepts, frameworks, and best practices.\nThe offered salary is dependent upon several factors, including work experience, skills, and internal peer comparisons. The posted range is subject to change in the future. For this role, base salary is supplemented by equity compensation. We encourage you to talk with your recruiter for more information related to compensation for this role!\nSalary Range:\n$220,800—$331,200 USD\nBenefits: Take a peek at how we care for our employees' holistic well-being with our benefits here.\nJob Alerts: Sign up for job alerts here.\nAccommodations: We will do everything we can within reason to make sure that your interview takes place in an environment that fairly and accurately assesses your skills. If you need assistance or accommodation, please contact .\nEqual Employment Opportunity: Duolingo is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.\nFraud Warning: Unfortunately, there is a rise in scammers pretending to be real Duolingo employees. Duolingo and our employees will never ask for your Social Security number, bank details, or passport info, and we’ll never ask you to deposit a check, purchase equipment, or exchange money during the interview process. Real Duolingo employees always use an email that ends in @duolingo.com or @recruiting.duolingo.com. Stay alert and double-check these details before sharing any information.\nBy applying for this position your data will be processed as per the Duolingo Applicant Privacy Notice.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4649,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Language Learning","E-learning"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-06T00:43:45Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 104 · green card filings: 19","filings_12m":104,"filings_prev_12m":41,"green_card_filings_12m":19,"median_offered_wage_usd":158638,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-11T07:38:50+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":87}],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":5,"expected_fill_days":55,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":331200,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/duolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/duolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T11:17:03Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":19610,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":19161},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=19161"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fduolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fduolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fduolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/duolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fduolingo-staff-ai-research-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3845871}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"duolingo.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3845871},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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