Hosted by Duolingo
This summer, we will be featuring blog posts written by PhD students who participated in Career Services’ Career Exploration Initiative (CEI), a program that helps doctoral candidates explore their career interests through networking opportunities with advanced degree professionals. Click here to learn more about CEI.
My host was Lisa Bromberg, a Lead Learning Designer at Duolingo. Lisa was incredibly supportive and generous with her time and advice throughout the program! We met through a series of biweekly meetings (typically 30–45 minutes). Our conversations blended “informational interview” style discussions (career trajectory, what day-to-day work looks like, pros/cons of leaving academia) with very practical professional development tips (for instance about translating my PhD work into industry skills, resume feedback, and job-search planning). Beyond our 1:1 meetings, I also had the opportunity to shadow Duolingo team meetings to see how work moves from internal planning to product rollout, and met with 2 additional people working at Duolingo in areas that specifically matched my interests and expertise. This helped me gain a much better understanding of what kind of industry positions match well with my profile – something I had no clue about prior to the CEI program!
I learned so many things through the CEI program! Perhaps most importantly, it helped me understand how many “hidden” PhD skills are highly relevant and sought after in industry once they’re described in the right language. Lisa was so helpful in identifying these as I talked about my research and telling me how I can translate that into skill labels that will be easily recognized in industry. I also learned that informational interviews aren’t just about gathering information—they’re also practice in presenting myself outside academia and building a professional narrative that fits industry expectations.
The most surprising lesson was how central pace and collaboration style are to the industry transition. Multiple conversations emphasized that industry often rewards moving forward much faster than in academia, making quick decisions, collaborating with team members throughout each day, and iterating with lots of feedback.
The CEI program broadened my perspective on possible career paths, making industry options much more tangible and concrete. This experience helped me feel much more prepared to pursue these options and know what to expect in terms of job search and actual daily life at a tech company. I plan to keep using informational interviews to learn about roles and to understand job-specific vocabulary.
The most valuable guidance came from the combination of Lisa’s ongoing mentorship—especially mapping my daily PhD activities to industry skill framing—and informational interviews with Duolingo researchers, which gave an inside view into what research looks like in a more product-driven environment.
One really valuable advice I took away: learn to demonstrate how I “drove impact” in my various research projects. This meant showing not only what I did, but also how my actions moved a project forward and what measurable outcome resulted (publications, deliverables, collaboration scope, process improvements, etc.).
CEI is 100% worth the time! The program helps you move from an abstract understanding of industry to a much more concrete idea of what jobs actually look like and how your PhD skills translate. There are more jobs that fit your profile that you probably think!
The program’s structure (workshops + host meetings) is a great combination of learning and directly applying new concepts (for example, there is a workshop to help you build a resume, which you can then refine with your host in follow-up meetings).
If you’re on the fence, I’d frame it this way: CEI provides a very accessible/non-scary way of getting in touch with the industry world, and will absolutely help you become more confident in knowing what options you have beyond academia.
