Ad Sales Lead, Programmatic

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.

Join us to build Duolingo Ads, Duolingo’s premium programmatic business. Most learners use our free, ad-supported app—so great ads are core to our mission. Reporting into the Head of Ad Sales, the Ad Sales Lead, Programmatic will build a deal-led book of business with agency holding companies, independent agencies, and advertisers who want access to Duolingo’s native formats, first-Party learner signals, and one of the most engaged mobile audiences in the world.

You will own buy-side relationships across holdco investment and programmatic teams, trading desks, curation and principal media groups, and premium programmatic buyers. This is a high-ownership, high-visibility, early-stage opportunity to help define how programmatic can fuel high-quality ads for millions of learners while driving outcomes for partners.

• Own a programmatic revenue target and forecast, and build a predictable pipeline across agency holding-company programmatic and investment teams, trading desks, independent agencies, and premium programmatic buyers.
• Lead our shift from open auction to premium, deal-led PMP/PG by packaging Duolingo’s native formats and first-Party learner signals into always-on and custom deals that buyers will pay a premium for, and negotiate annual and upfront commitments that make that revenue durable.
• Become the person holdco programmatic teams call about mobile app inventory: run joint business planning; get Duolingo onto preferred supply paths, curated marketplaces, and principal/outcome-based buys; and defend our position when buyers consolidate
• Build the programmatic value proposition and measurement story through proposals, pricing narratives, and post-campaign proof that connect our native formats and audience data to brand and performance outcomes (e.g., verification, attention, brand lift, incrementality, MMM).
• Partner with Ad Platform Operations and Ad Ops on deal setup, targeting, floors, pacing, and troubleshooting—ensuring what you sell is deliverable and delivers against expectations.
• Work alongside our direct sellers under clear rules of engagement so programmatic expands the account through incremental value; coordinate with Account Management pre- and post-sale to drive renewal and expansion.
• Feed structured market intelligence back to sales, product, and engineering leadership about what buyers need in pricing, packaging, audience segments, formats, and integrations, balancing this input with our learner-first standards and operational quality.
• Establish the operating rhythm for a scaling programmatic business via account planning, outreach cadences, deal hygiene in CRM, pipeline rigor, and repeatable playbooks the next sellers can run.

You have

• 8+ years in digital advertising, including at least 4 years selling programmatic on the sell side (publisher/platform/app) or in a holding-company programmatic/investment role, carrying and hitting a quota; demonstrated PMP/PG selling and trading-desk engagement.
• A demonstrated book of PMP and PG business you personally sourced, negotiated, and grew.
• Experience selling premium mobile or consumer app inventory—especially video and native/custom…