In a recent report of Hired’s 2020 State Of Software Engineers, 60% of engineers surveyed want to use their coding skills to solve serious global problems — from global warming to unemployment to education. So it’s no surprise that talented developers are looking to make moves from digital and social media, finance, and big tech to companies in other sectors. EdTech is one such sector, for a few reasons: massive growth and capital investment, complex and interesting tech challenges, and opportunities to meld career growth with the ability to make a societal impact.
EdTech is a fast-growing sector with massive investment and growth
When you look at the past five years, there’s been a structural shift from print-based to digital learning materials in K-12 and higher education, and a resulting flurry of activity in the EdTech market across startups and more mature companies. Big tech and media companies, including the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Disney, are joining in the M&A activity to acquire EdTech products. According to EdSurge, venture capital investment in U.S. EdTech companies reached at least $1.66B across 105 deals in 2019, a five-year high. Some of the most well-known venture capital and private equity firms who have historically invested in tech overall are also injecting cash into EdTech. NEA recently led a $130M round in Coursera, making it the largest investment in EdTech history and valuing the company at an estimated $2.5B. Coursera joins the ranks of Quizlet, Udemy, and the ever-growing list of other EdTech unicorns paving the way for massive growth in the sector. Other big names including Kleiner Perkins, TPG Growth’s Rise Fund, and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) — the investor behind Spotify and Netflix — have been steadily growing their EdTech portfolios over the last few years.
In fact, TCV led a $50M Series C investment in Newsela that helped fuel a 60% headcount growth that started in 2018. Newsela now boasts over 330 employees, and in the last year, the company was awarded a spot in Deloitte’s Tech Fast 500 list, honoring the fastest-growing innovative tech companies in North America. Throughout 2019, Newsela has seen an even greater growth trajectory, in part due to the needs of schools grappling with the future of education during and post-COVID. With every school district considering what back-to-school and beyond will look like, some of the largest districts and states are looking to Newsela to ensure their teachers and students have the resources they need to seamlessly move from in-classroom learning to asynchronous, remote instruction.
Newsela was founded on the principle that while every student learns differently, they all deserve a rich learning experience that ignites a love of learning. The company built its platform based on learning science to deliver the most engaging, authentic content to modernize how teaching happens in the classroom. Along with embedded instructional supports and student activities, Newsela provides digital content written at five adaptive reading levels–from hundreds of the world’s most trusted sources–that is relevant to the diverse backgrounds and interests of their students. Since the company launched in 2013, it has established a presence in 90% of U.S. K-12 schools.
EdTech offers the technical challenges and innovation engineers crave
“I was kind of skeptical at first about whether or not the problems that we’d be solving were going to be interesting,” says Vanessa, an Engineering Manager at Newsela. “Upon speaking with the teams — and now two years later — I can say that the complexity of the work rivals what you would expect at other big tech companies. Two exciting challenges we’ve been tackling recently are using natural language processing to identify vocabulary words and GraphQL to deliver our content.”
In fact, engineers at Newsela are tasked with building a platform that can handle educational content in any form, both known and yet to be invented. They strive for flexibility and progressive technical solutions. Engineers at Newsela are a part of the discovery process, which helps ensure that what they seek to create meets the needs of students and teachers and takes full advantage of what’s possible with today’s technology. This gives them the ability to apply advancements in modeling via GraphQL or analysis via Machine Learning at the earliest moment. The Newsela team starts with the best educational writing on the market and then pairs it with flexible, progressive technologies to create features that achieve learning goals, inspire the next generation of global citizens, and get dynamic inclusive content into the hands of the over 2.5M teachers and 37M students on Newsela’s platform. It’s challenges like these that are attracting engineers.
“The way content gets to our system, and the whole process of how we source content, rework it into multiple reading levels and create lesson bundles is quite complex,” says Skye, Director of Application Development at Newsela. “When you then layer on top of that the content search and personalization we’re developing, our teams get to work through some of the most engaging and nuanced engineering challenges out there.”
Another pillar of Newsela’s engineering work is ensuring and improving the accessibility of their products. John, a Lead Engineer shares, “Figuring out the best way to design an experience for a student who has to use a screen reader or has to navigate without a mouse is really exciting and rewarding.”
EdTech boasts the opportunity for professional development and accelerated career advancement, in addition to mission and impact
The truth is that EdTech is one of those rare “best of both worlds” sectors, and Newsela in particular, combines all the most exciting elements of being an innovative tech startup with the sense of clarity and purpose that a mission-driven organization can offer. With so many engineers looking for ways to do great work while also staying consistent with their values and contributing positively to society, EdTech can be a winning proposition.
With the type of investment and growth in EdTech as noted above, ambitious engineers may be able to accelerate their own learning and development at a pace you would expect of any other fast-growth tech company reinventing an industry. And unlike FinTech or AdTech, every employee can instantly relate to the problems and the opportunities that face Newsela users because every one of us has been a student at one time, or a parent of a student, or knows someone in school. “Knowing I could work on a product that my neighbors, nieces, and nephews use and love made putting names and faces to our end users really easy,” says Keyairra, a Web App Developer. “The combination of that, and getting to be a part of building inclusive, accessible learning products was extremely appealing.”
With Newsela’s focus on education, learning naturally permeates their culture. “Learning and professional growth are things that we continually reinforce in the engineering culture here,” shares Vanessa. Marni, a Web App Developer at Newsela echoes that assertion, “It’s the type of culture where team members actually get excited to share their knowledge, deep-dive on something with you, or help you troubleshoot an issue.”
Recently, Comparably released its annual list of businesses that were highly ranked for career growth and professional development. Newsela ranked #7 of the Top 25 Best Small Companies to Grow Your Career. Employees anonymously ranked their companies based on their own evaluations of opportunities to learn and grow inside each organization. One Newsela employee cited in their anonymous rating, “I appreciate leadership’s ability to listen to our ideas and allow everyone to create their own path at Newsela. Whether it be owning our own project, or moving into a different role, there is always support available for us.”
The world is changing and so many engineers, and employees in general, are reconsidering the types of companies with whom they want to share their exceptional talent and make a real impact. Considering EdTech, if you haven’t before, may be the right move. With heavy investment in the sector, accelerated growth, challenging tech problems, exciting career opportunities, and an ability to drive improvements in society, companies like Newsela can provide the perfect balance of tech innovation and mission for those looking for their next challenge.
