Twitter today announced its latest acquisition, along with a move into offering richer resources to attract better engineering talent to the company. It’s acquiring Marakana, an open-source technical training company. It, in turn, will be the force behind a new effort called Twitter University (school mascot: a blue bird, not a whale).
“The founders, Marko and Sasa Gargenta, have impressed us with their entrepreneurial leadership, commitment to learning and technical expertise,” writes Chris Fry, the head of engineering at the company in a blog post.
The move is an important sign of a couple of things:
First, as Twitter has grown — and become a more mature company now well past the stage of scrappy startup — it’s already made several moves to provide training to help people at the company continue to feel that they are there learning new things, as well as working on projects that make the most of what they already know. Existing training projects, Fry notes, include orientation classes for engineers, iOS Bootcamp, JVM Fundamentals, Distributed Systems and Scala School. It’s important for Twitter to continue to grow these kinds of services to hold on to the people that they have.
Second, establishing something like this, and putting Marakana at the helm of it, could introduce a whole new community of engineers to the company — no small thing at a time when tech companies big and small continue to hunt for top talent, especially in competitive markets like Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Indeed, this is something that Fry points out, too:
“The Marakana team has cultivated a tremendous community of engineers in the Bay Area, and we look forward to engaging with all of you at meet-ups and technical events.”
Third, Twitter has made some strong efforts contributing to open source projects over the years (here, here and here are examples), and so this builds on that credibility as well.
Blog post below. More to come.
As Twitter has scaled, so too has our engineering organization. To help our engineers grow, it’s important for them to have access to world-class technical training, along with opportunities to teach the skills they’ve mastered. To that end, we’re establishing Twitter University.
Twitter University builds on several existing efforts at Twitter. We currently offer employees a whole swath of technical trainings, from orientation classes for new engineers to iOS Bootcamp, JVM Fundamentals, Distributed Systems, Scala School, and more for those who want to develop new skills. Most of these classes are taught by our own team members, and many of them have been organized during our quarterly Hack Weeks –– a testament to our engineers’ passion for learning and education.
I’ve been inspired by these efforts. Being able to continually learn on the job and develop a sense of expertise or mastery is a fundamental factor in success in the technology industry and long term happiness at a company. Twitter University will be a vital foundation for our engineering organization.
To lead the program, we’ve acquired Marakana, a company dedicated to open source training. We’ve been working with them for several months. The founders, Marko and Sasa Gargenta, have impressed us with their entrepreneurial leadership, commitment to learning and technical expertise.
The Marakana team has cultivated a tremendous community of engineers in the Bay Area, and we look forward to engaging with all of you at meet-ups and technical events. Additionally, we’ll continue to contribute to open source software, and we aim to release some of the Twitter University content online to anyone who’d like to learn. You can keep up with Twitter University by following @TwU.
We want Twitter to be the best place in the world for engineers to work. Join us.
“The founders, Marko and Sasa Gargenta, have impressed us with their entrepreneurial leadership, commitment to learning and technical expertise,” writes Chris Fry, the head of engineering at the company in a blog post.
The move is an important sign of a couple of things:
First, as Twitter has grown — and become a more mature company now well past the stage of scrappy startup — it’s already made several moves to provide training to help people at the company continue to feel that they are there learning new things, as well as working on projects that make the most of what they already know. Existing training projects, Fry notes, include orientation classes for engineers, iOS Bootcamp, JVM Fundamentals, Distributed Systems and Scala School. It’s important for Twitter to continue to grow these kinds of services to hold on to the people that they have.
Second, establishing something like this, and putting Marakana at the helm of it, could introduce a whole new community of engineers to the company — no small thing at a time when tech companies big and small continue to hunt for top talent, especially in competitive markets like Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Indeed, this is something that Fry points out, too:
“The Marakana team has cultivated a tremendous community of engineers in the Bay Area, and we look forward to engaging with all of you at meet-ups and technical events.”
Third, Twitter has made some strong efforts contributing to open source projects over the years (here, here and here are examples), and so this builds on that credibility as well.
Blog post below. More to come.
As Twitter has scaled, so too has our engineering organization. To help our engineers grow, it’s important for them to have access to world-class technical training, along with opportunities to teach the skills they’ve mastered. To that end, we’re establishing Twitter University.
Twitter University builds on several existing efforts at Twitter. We currently offer employees a whole swath of technical trainings, from orientation classes for new engineers to iOS Bootcamp, JVM Fundamentals, Distributed Systems, Scala School, and more for those who want to develop new skills. Most of these classes are taught by our own team members, and many of them have been organized during our quarterly Hack Weeks –– a testament to our engineers’ passion for learning and education.
I’ve been inspired by these efforts. Being able to continually learn on the job and develop a sense of expertise or mastery is a fundamental factor in success in the technology industry and long term happiness at a company. Twitter University will be a vital foundation for our engineering organization.
To lead the program, we’ve acquired Marakana, a company dedicated to open source training. We’ve been working with them for several months. The founders, Marko and Sasa Gargenta, have impressed us with their entrepreneurial leadership, commitment to learning and technical expertise.
The Marakana team has cultivated a tremendous community of engineers in the Bay Area, and we look forward to engaging with all of you at meet-ups and technical events. Additionally, we’ll continue to contribute to open source software, and we aim to release some of the Twitter University content online to anyone who’d like to learn. You can keep up with Twitter University by following @TwU.
We want Twitter to be the best place in the world for engineers to work. Join us.
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