About this role
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!
At Duolingo, you’ll join a team that cares about educating our users, experimenting with big ideas, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. You’ll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds — while doing work that’s both meaningful and fun.
Join our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world.
Read our blog to learn more.
About the role...
Join us to build Duolingo Ads, Duolingo’s direct ad business. Most learners use our free, ad-supported app, so high-quality ads are core to our mission. We’re hiring an Ad Sales Lead in Chicago to open and lead the Central region. This is a senior individual-contributor role for a seller who can both win business and help shape how we scale: you’ll set regional strategy, build a high-quality pipeline across priority verticals, cultivate senior relationships with brands and agencies, and close high-impact deals that delight learners and drive revenue. You’ll partner closely with sales leadership and the cross-functional ads team to influence pricing, packaging, market prioritization, and the broader go-to-market motion as Duolingo Ads grows. This is a high-ownership, early-stage opportunity to help define the trajectory of ads on Duolingo for hundreds of millions of learners.
🧠 You will...
• Own the Central region’s direct ads strategy and revenue outcomes, including named-account prioritization, pipeline development, forecasting, and quarterly execution.
• Build and grow senior relationships across brands and agencies, opening new logos and expanding strategic accounts into long-term, high-value partnerships.
• Lead complex, high-impact deals end-to-end, from prospecting and positioning through negotiation, close, renewal, and expansion.
• Translate Duolingo’s unique strengths, including premium attention, native formats, character IP, and brand equity, into clear commercial narratives tailored to advertiser objectives.
• Partner closely with Account Management, Ad Ops, Product, Design, and Engineering to move deals forward, shape feasible programs, and improve the advertiser and learner experience.
• Share actionable market feedback with sales and product leadership to inform pricing, packaging, measurement, and future ad formats.
• Help establish repeatable systems and standards for a growing ads business, including account planning, CRM hygiene, proposal quality, and pipeline rigor.
✅ You have...
• 8+ years of experience in direct digital ad sales, with a strong track record of building senior client relationships and closing meaningful new business.
• Success selling premium video and native/custom ad formats in digital, mobile, or consumer app environment