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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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