I'm considering joining Udemy for a senior software engineer role. Have ~4 years of experience as a backend engineer. How is Udemy placed currently given that there are so many compitators in the edTech space ? How engineering focused is the company ? Is it a good time to join it now ? Would the rate of learning be faster in a start up like Udemy vs a fairly big public company ?
Look at the current CEO’s background and make a judgement call there. Make sure to check on their funding and burn rate too.
What did you decide to do?
I plan to stick to public companies for now. I understood that I can push myself a little more to prepare and try for tier 1,2 companies in the next 6 months. If not then I'll think of settling for a decent start up. Primarily looking for good peer quality and great learning rate.
How much was TC?
It’s been a few years since I’ve worked in edtech, but I wouldn’t consider Udemy mainstream for the industry. It sources content from people with zero academic credentials, which means no inroads with serious educational institutions like universities. In that respect, I’d say it operates independently of trends in true EdTech and might not give you the industry credentials you’re looking for. If that matters to you, join a large company like Pearson or a smaller company like Coursera. All the tech giants have education divisions as well, but these tend to be deprioritized because they don’t bring in the cash that other B2B orgs do. To answer your last question, although I’ve only ever worked for or with recently acquired startups, I can say that they tend to have a much lower bar than larger tech companies. This applies not only to hiring but also content, turn around times, performance, etc. A start up can be a really confusing and frustrating place to work, but some people love it, and the same downfalls can be found at large companies as well. That said, Udemy isn’t really a start up anymore. More like a medium sized company.
Really appreciate your detailed response.