👀 Duolingo APM: Application to Offer – iykyk

Egypt, Cornell Tech, First 1000 Newsletter

Hi there 👋 — Who are you and what’s your background?

Hi, I’m Ali! I’m currently an APM @ Duolingo and writing the first1000.co newsletter, a newsletter about How Founders Got Their Very First 1000 Users.

I grew up in Egypt and did my undergraduate degree at NYU and my Masters at Cornell Tech, and prior to my masters I also used to work in Venture Capital in the middle east.

A couple fun facts about me are that my favorite place in the world is the comedy cellar in NYC and my favorite food is spicy rigatoni pasta!

Rotations and Program Structure

For those who are unfamiliar, how is the program structured and run?

So the Duolingo APM Program’s primary goal is to recruit, hire, onboard, and train leaders to set them on a path to product greatness.

Each APM does 2-3 rotations (6-9 months each), and when APMs graduate they are promoted to PMs.

Mentorship at Duolingo

Is there anything the program landing page doesn't tell us about the APM program?

I think one thing that really stood out to me is how much mentorship you get at Duolingo. Besides your role manager you have two mentors (one that is one level above you and one that is 2-3 levels above you). Those mentors help you become the best product person you can be, and they’ve helped me tremendously in growing and honing my product skills in my first year here.

It is crazy the amount of support and investment Duolingo provides to APMs.

Prep > Referrals

What do you think made you stand out as an applicant and is there a recruitment strategy that nobody is doing right now, but should be?

I think people over-index on referrals and under-index on prep.

I spent a lot of my time just diving into the Duolingo App, reading blog posts, watching Duocon’s from my previous years and trying to understand the “Duolingo way of building products.” Just understanding the high level philosophy/strategy of a company is very underrated and in my opinion more people should be doing this. For context, I didn’t spend any time trying to network with people @ Duolingo, and fully focused on prep.

Interview Structure and Content

Can you describe the interview process and what it looked like for your role? (# of rounds, types of questions asked, etc)

I think in total I had 3 rounds, with multiple interviews in each. The first round is an HR interview with typical resume checks.

The second and third are kind of similar. If I remember correctly, the interviews I had in those rounds were focused on strategy, product sense, design sense and analysis.

Most of the interviews were in some shape or form related to Duolingo.

Salary Expectations

What is the average starting salary for program participants and what does the salary progression look like once you’ve graduated from the program?

It’s competitive and comparable with other APM programs!