In humans, the spine is the body’s central support structure, connecting different parts of the musculoskeletal system to enable movement. At Codecademy, engineering might be considered the backbone of the organization, serving much the same purpose in supporting the rest of the company.
Engineers on the team not only build the platform for users, but they also keep the team moving toward the vision and connected to the mission: helping learners gain the skills to pursue careers in tech.
“As a company that helps people get ready for jobs in technical careers, our engineering team is uniquely close to our mission,” said CTO Oliver Plattner. Essentially, the engineers within the company are able to closely identify with the experience of its users, and help build an educational platform to improve the learning experience for aspiring technologists.
It’s no secret that there is a talent shortage in tech. In fact, IT executives see the talent shortage as the most significant adoption barrier to 64 percent of emerging technologies, compared with just 4 percent in 2020, according to 2021 research by Gartner. Codecademy is building a talent pipeline by making education more accessible, through means that include offering a wealth of free tools for learning how to code.
“Jobs in technology are growing rapidly, yet there are too many barriers to pursuing these career opportunities,” said Plattner. “Traditional pathways, including higher education and even boot camps, require a significant time and financial investment that many people simply cannot afford.”
The Codecademy team is growing quickly after gaining $40 million in Series D financing in 2021. The team just surpassed 200 employees, twice the headcount from last year. Plattner is in charge of building the team of engineers and data scientists, which has recently included key leadership hires.
Built In NYC caught up with Plattner for more insight into the growth of its engineering teams.
What brought you to Codecademy?
Having worked in tech my entire career, I’m passionate about making the industry more accessible and encouraging as many people as possible to pursue technical career opportunities. I’ve spent many years at startups working on strategies to build diverse teams, though those never began with education. Codecademy reaches tens of millions of people around the world — its impact is larger than any single university or boot camp — and can therefore drive huge and meaningful change within the industry. That’s something I wanted to be a part of.
At Codecademy I’ve grown from managing a 12-person engineering team to heading an almost 80-person department. I’ve had the opportunity to hire many talented directors and recently, a vice president. My mantra for hiring is to always seek out people who are even more qualified than I am. This has helped us level up as a company and overall team, and is also a source of my personal growth as a leader.
My mantra for hiring is to always seek out people who are even more qualified than I am.
Why is Codecademy’s engineering team the backbone of the company?
Like our learners, every engineer and data scientist at Codecademy has forged their career journey in technology, which allows us to work closely with our product and curriculum teams to influence how and what we teach. One of the best things about working at Codecademy is the partnerships we’ve built with those departments — we’ve had several excellent employees grow from a curriculum developer to a fully-fledged engineer.
Besides working closely with employees in-house, we have worked with several organizations in NYC to support aspiring engineers and data scientists on a volunteer basis, including All-Star Code and Pursuit. Additionally, we run an apprenticeship program two to three times per year. Our apprenticeship program is the strongest I’ve ever seen, thanks to all the hard work our team puts into mentoring, coaching, and fostering an inclusive environment that promotes learning and professional growth.
What are some recent high-level hires you've made, and what do they mean for the future of the engineering team?
We recently hired a few senior-level leaders whose roles will be instrumental as we grow as a team and as a company. This summer, we brought on a vice president of security and compliance, which is especially crucial as we expand our B2B footprint and work with more enterprise clients who trust us with our data. We also hired a director of platform, who will help us build stronger foundations to improve our product offerings, as well as a director of infrastructure and DevOps, who will ensure we’re working as efficiently as possible, especially during this period of growth.
In addition to establishing and building out those newer functions, our product engineering teams have done an incredible job supporting the needs of the business and empowering our customers. In particular, the teams working on our growth and B2B products have accomplished a lot this year, and they’ll continue to make a bigger impact as we invest more in those teams.
How has the team restructured as it has grown?
As we’ve grown, we’ve added new functions and layers of dedicated focus. Today, we have a director of data, a director of platform, a director of infrastructure and DevOps, a vice president of product engineering, and a vice president of security and compliance. Establishing these functions is a big milestone for us as a technical team, signifying how far we’ve come and what we’re setting out to accomplish.
Tell us why Codecademy’s product matters. What are you most excited about with this work?
To get more people pursuing career opportunities in tech, we need a solution that’s both effective and scalable, which I believe Codecademy provides. Through our interactive learning platform, we’ve created an engaging, accessible, and flexible way to gain in-demand technical skills, which have already been used by tens of millions of people around the world. Moving forward, we want to reach even more learners and help them throughout their entire career journeys, whether they’re just starting or looking to level up in their existing roles.
To date, we’ve been mostly focused on learning — providing educational content to help our users unlock new skills. While learning will always be an essential part of our work, moving forward we want to focus even more on applying and doing. Our goal is to get our users job-ready by preparing them for real-world scenarios and technical applications.
The mission of Codecademy is to empower learners to grow in technology. How can the engineering team have a hand in that?
We are a very mission-driven company, which is especially true on the engineering team, as many of our team members share similar experiences with our learners. We’re not only powering the technology behind our platform, but we’re also shaping the types of products and content we’re offering our learners. We also care deeply about providing learning opportunities internally, including our apprenticeship program that’s all about mentorship, coaching, and creating a welcoming environment to prepare new technologists for real-world work situations.
We are a very mission-driven company, which is especially true on the engineering team, as many of our team members share similar experiences with our learners.
What’s the culture like on the engineering team? How are creativity and innovation encouraged?
There are several principles we abide by on the engineering team to help define our culture. As a team, we are committed to showing respect, creating mutual trust, and promoting a safe, inclusive work environment. We embrace setbacks and celebrate our wins as a team. We take big bets while shipping iteratively, which allows us to continuously learn, grow, and scale our impact. And above all else, we prioritize our learners and meeting their needs.
It’s critical that we set aside time to think bigger and make bolder bets about how we can best serve our learners. Our mobile app was originally built as a side project, and today it’s been used by millions of learners. We also host regular hackathons, which allow team members to think outside the box, collaborate with people they may not typically work with, and create something that has the opportunity to become a part of our roadmap in the future.
