47. Akshay Verma of Duolingo

Dollars to Donuts

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Akshay Verma, the head of User Research at Duolingo. We talk about being qualitative focused in an experimentation-driven organization, research team structures, team rituals, and sharing knowledge between researchers.

I don’t actually want to bemoan or belabor this concept of a room that we’re invited to or not. At Duolingo, I feel it pretty acutely just because we do have a lot of rituals and traditions at Duolingo around how product gets built. And it’s great. It works. It works really well. But, you know, I could spend a lot of time and energy going crazy, being like, “How do I get invited to these rooms?” and then get upset when it doesn’t happen? I actually don’t. I try my best, but I think our energy is probably spent elsewhere.” – Akshay Verma

Show Links

• Episode transcript
• Akshay on LinkedIn
• Duolingo
• How Duolingo is using its ‘unhinged content’ with Duo the Owl to make people laugh on TikTok
• FigJam
• IDEO
• Stanford d.school
• Calendly
• How the Underground Dance Music Scene Makes Me a Better User Researcher
• Get Familiar With Detroit Techno: 10 Essential Songs

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