Duolingo

Sessions are drawn from seven named formats – a 60-minute CodeSignal technical interview, a 75-minute pair-programming round in a production-style codebase, a 60-minute code review, a 60-minute design interview, a 60-minute AI-assisted engineering round where the candidate uses a Copilot/Cursor-style assistant to build a working app, plus an asynchronous online coding task and a whiteboard round reserved for university and new-grad hires. The general application flow wraps these with a recruiter chat and a hiring-team chat before the technical loop begins. Two candidates for the same engineering role can sit different sessions, so prep has to cover both algorithmic work and codebase-style work; the AI-assisted round in particular rewards delivering a fully functional artifact, not a snippet.

Duolingo's named early-career program is the Thrive Program, a 10-week summer internship of roughly 25 rising juniors with four tracks:

• Software Engineering – minimum two college-level CS courses; programming experience in Java, Python, Kotlin, or Swift
• Product Management – user-insight and data-analysis focus
• Product Design – portfolio required; experience with Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, or Origami
• Studio Art (Illustrator or Animator) – minimum two college-level design courses, plus experience in the relevant creative software

The cohort opens with two weeks of "Hootcamp" (role-specific technical curriculum plus cohort-wide professional sessions), then group projects led by a tenured employee called a "Thrive Host", presented to the company in the final week. Each application goes to one specific track at submission, so a candidate has to fit their portfolio or coursework to a single track upfront rather than apply broadly across the program.

Three things stand out in Duolingo's own recruiting material:

• In-office four days a week, Monday through Thursday with Fridays optional; the careers page tells new hires to prepare to onboard at the Pittsburgh, PA headquarters.
• The Thrive Program was explicitly built to support underrepresented students in computer science and creative fields, with the Hootcamp curriculum, group projects led by a tenured "Thrive Host", and a "Thrive Buddy" mentor matched to the intern's track.
• The engineering interview bifurcates its AI policy: AI is not permitted on coding challenges or paired-programming exercises, but the loop also includes a dedicated 60-minute AI-assisted engineering round in which candidates use a Copilot- or Cursor-style assistant to build a functional app.

The combination filters at submission (portfolio or coursework has to match a single track) and shapes prep: algorithmic interview practice cannot lean on AI, while building an AI-assisted demo is its own preparation track.