People Relations Business Partner

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.

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About the role...

We’re hiring a People Relations Business Partner to lead Duolingo’s approach to employee relations, leaves of absence, and workplace accommodations. You will serve as a trusted advisor to Duos, managers, and People Business Partners, bringing sound judgment and consistency to complex employee matters. You’ll manage employee relations cases, own our leave and accommodations programs, and use insights across this work to strengthen our practices and employee experience as Duolingo grows globally.

 

🧠  You will...

• Employee Relations

  • Manage Employee Relations Cases: Lead employee relations matters from intake through resolution, including employee concerns, workplace conflicts, conduct issues, and other sensitive situations.
  • Conduct Investigations: Lead fair, thorough, and timely workplace investigations, documenting findings and partnering with Legal and People Business Partners on appropriate next steps.
  • Advise Managers & PBPs: Provide practical guidance on employee concerns, performance and conduct matters, policy interpretation, and complex workplace situations.
  • Build ER Practices: Develop tools, guidance, documentation standards, and case management practices that support consistent and thoughtful decision-making.
  • Partner Across the Business: Work closely with People Business Partners, Legal, and other People teams to navigate complex or high-risk employee matters.

  Leaves & Accommodations

  • Own the Programs: Lead Duolingo’s global leave of absence and workplace accommodations programs, including program strategy, employee experience, policies, processes, and continuous improvement.
  • Lead Accommodations: Manage workplace accommodation requests from intake through implementation and follow-up, partnering with Duos and managers to identify effective, reasonable solutions.
  • Navigate Complex Leaves: Serve as the internal expert and escalation point for complex leave matters, partnering with external administrators, Benefits, Legal, managers, and People Business Partners.
  • Support Return to Work: Guide complex return-to-work situations and transitions between leave and workplace accommodations.
  • Manage Vendor Performance: Establish clear expectations for external leave and accommodations partners and hold them accountable for service, accuracy, timeliness, and employee experience.
  • Support Our Global Workforce: Partner with regional People Business Partners and Legal to navigate leave and accommodation matters across geographies and local requirements.

  Insights & Program Improvement

  • Surface Trends: Analyze employee relations, leave, and accommodation activity to identify recurring themes, emerging risks, and opportunities for improvement.
  • Look Beyond the Case: Connect patterns across individual cases to broader questions about management practices, workload, role design, policies, benefits, accessibility, and the employee experience.
  • Turn Insight Into Action: Partner with People leadership, PBPs, Benefits, and Legal to translate what we’re learning into practical improvements.
  • Measure Effectiveness: Develop meaningful measures of program health, including timeliness, consistency, outcomes, employee experience, and vendor performance.

  People Team Support

  • Support PBP Priorities: Provide coordination and project support across select People Business Partner priorities, including documentation, reporting, research, and process work.
  • Drive Follow-Through: Help keep defined PBP workstreams organized and moving, bringing strong attention to detail, judgment, and execution.

 

✅  You have...

• 5+ years of experience across employee relations, workplace accommodations, leave management, HR, or related areas, including experience independently managing complex employee matters.
• Experience conducting workplace investigations and navigating sensitive employee relations matters from intake through resolution.
• Strong working knowledge of workplace accommodations and leave practices, including the ADA, FMLA, and interactive process.
• Experience advising managers and People partners on complex employee situations and translating policies and legal requirements into practical guidance.
• Strong judgment and the ability to navigate sensitive or ambiguous situations with consistency and discretion.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including clear, objective case documentation.
• Strong case management and organizational skills, with careful attention to confidentiality and follow-through.
• Ability to identify patterns across individual cases and translate them into broader organizational insights.
• Comfort working across teams, functions, and geographies in a fast-moving environment.

 

⭐  Exceptional candidates will have...

• Global Experience: Experience supporting employee relations, leaves, or accommodations across multiple countries or regions.
• Investigations Expertise: Significant experience independently conducting complex workplace investigations.
• Program Building: Experience building or scaling employee relations, leave, or accommodations practices.
• Vendor + System Management: Experience overseeing case management, external leave or accommodations administrators and using performance data to improve service.
• Systems & Insights: Experience using case management systems and employee data to identify trends and inform organizational decisions.