About Duolingo
Duolingo makes education accessible through play and purpose
Duolingo has always aimed to make learning easier to reach. The team started with languages, then expanded into math, music, and chess as part of a larger effort to bring effective education to people everywhere. With over 130 million monthly active users, the platform’s reach underscores the ambition.
The challenge
Duolingo’s fast-moving, mission-driven teams needed a way to maintain momentum
“When I joined Duolingo in 2019, we were about 100 people with a dream of going public, and we were already on Slack,” said Jocelyn S. Lai, Global Head of Talent Brand. But the pace and shape of the business changed quickly. Duolingo added new functions and teams, opened new offices, and grew into a highly international team. What had once been simple, close-quarters communication now involved more people, more disciplines, and far more cross-functional work.
As the company expanded, the real challenge was making sure the way teams worked could keep up with Duolingo’s “clock speed” mentality. The team actively works to minimize the time between an idea and action, and Lai said even small delays could disrupt momentum. They needed a shared space where they could move fast without interrupting each other’s focus, stay aligned across time zones, and keep decisions flowing without piling on meetings.
To meet the demands of their growing, fast-moving organization, Duolingo needed to rethink how they worked.
Our mission is to build the world’s best education and make it universally available. Slack helps us bring that to life.
How Duolingo works better with Slack
Slack keeps Duolingo’s teams connected, creative, and moving fast
A culture you can feel in Slack
Slack is deeply embedded in Duolingo’s culture. “We are a very Slack-heavy culture,” Lai said. “The majority of our conversations happen there.” The team is highly international, and Lai said the mix of “high brilliance and high kindness” creates a thoughtful environment where people connect with care.
This shows up not just in project channels but in the daily banter that bonds the team. Channels like #fun-unpopular-opinions and #fun-confessionals stay active with everything from design debates to silly admissions. “There’s no judgment and a lot of fun in Slack,” Lai said.
“Make it fun” is actually a company principle reflected in how channels are named and how quickly custom emoji pop up for new projects. New hires often react with surprise at the volume and energy: “We all live on Slack,” Lai said. “People love how many custom emoji we have.” Currently, that number is near 16,000 and rising, and includes a dancing parrot emoji chain triggered when an employee types “dance party!”
Everyone can see, and join, the work
Work and play sit side by side. “We are just as serious about our work on Slack as we are about having fun.” Project channels are open by default, allowing anyone to join, observe, or contribute.
“We’re not trying to keep anyone out,” Lai said. “It’s more about how we bring people together.” By working openly across marketing, product, legal, and external collaborators in Slack Connect, teams remove friction that slows work, unlocking faster ideation and smoother execution.
Faster decisions, fewer meetings
Within marketing, public channels like #marketing-review mirror typical review processes, giving all Duolingo employees visibility and speeding up approvals. “With Slack, we don’t need as many meetings,” Lai said. When an idea needs quick input, it goes straight there. “If we need fast feedback from our CMO, Manu Orssaud, we put it in #marketing-review and ask him for a decision.” Recently, Lai submitted content to CEO Luis von Ahn in a Slack channel, and it was reviewed and approved within three minutes.
Another channel, #marketing-hot-trash, exists purely for “bad ideas only,” a creative space where playful thinking often sparks great campaigns. At the end of each week, Orssaud posts a recap in the public #team-marketing channel so everyone can see what the team accomplished. “The company as a whole also knows what we’ve been working on,” said Lai.
Cutting friction with integrations and bots
Workflows and integrations eliminate manual steps and keep teams working where they’re already building momentum. By bringing tools like Figma, Confluence, Google Drive, and Workday directly into Slack, they can review, approve, and collaborate without switching contexts. “Even if it’s a one click task like approving requests, we’re still working to save time and automate there,” said Lai.
Slack bots also help reduce repetitive questions. For example, when someone posts an IT question, a bot auto-reacts with an emoji to acknowledge it, creates a ticket, assigns it to the right person, and starts a thread. This way, the team doesn’t have to track every request manually.
For example,
“Slack is a mirror of our culture. It moves even faster than our in-person conversations.”
What’s next
Duolingo is building on its Slack foundation to scale collaboration and creativity
As Duolingo expands its educational offerings, Slack continues to serve as a place for quick decisions, open dialogue, and team culture that scales. Lai said even as the company grows, Slack grows with them, helping the team maintain the same connectedness they had when they were 100 people.
Duolingo plans to keep refining how teams use Slack to balance structure and spontaneity by automating more workflows, deepening integrations, and finding new ways to keep collaboration human, joyful, and fast.
