The Knewton Blog

We welcomed three new team members in July. Here’s a brief introduction to our newest Knerds! Sara Ittelson (left) isn’t really new to Knewton, having spent three months here as an MBA intern in the summer of 2011. She left us for a little while to finish up her MBA and Masters in Education at Stanford, but now she’s back for good as the Director of Business Development. Sara is originally from Chico, CA, and received… Read more

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I still remember when I first came to Knewton for my interview over two years ago. I said I was interested in marketing. I was told I could start off in academics drafting verbal coursework. The director assured me that there were plenty of opportunities for “cross-pollination” (at the time, I thought this was an original metaphor ). Within a few days, I started blogging for the marketing team. Within a few months, I was… Read more

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Moving day! We recently packed up and shipped out, moving the entire Knewton office one block away, to much bigger and nicer digs over on 5th Avenue. It was a bit of a crazy transition, but we couldn’t be happier with the results — more space, awesome furniture, plenty of conference rooms, and just as many whiteboard walls and snacks. In the whirlwind of moving, I gathered a few photos and video clips and made… Read more

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There’s been a lot of talk about the importance of hiring “T-shaped” people — employees with a breadth of experience across a variety of disciplines (the horizontal bar of the letter T), as well as deep knowledge and expertise in a particular field (the vertical bar). Our Head of Infrastructure Dave Zwieback (aka DZ) has a different requirement when it comes time to find DevOps hires: he’s looking for comb-shaped people. Watch DZ’s talk at… Read more

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Every summer, the seams of our office stretch a bit to accommodate a few good interns. This year is no exception. We’ve got a crop of impressive college students, recent graduates, and grad students here to prove — once again — that age is no measure of errand-running talent. Just kidding. The only coffee these interns will be fetching is their own — and they’ll need it. All of them will be digging into some… Read more

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We’re excited to welcome Sarah Haskins to the Knewton team. Sarah previously worked for the City of New York creating online maps; now, she joins our Platform team as a Senior Software Engineer. Originally from New Hope, PA, Sarah graduated from North Carolina State University. She’s an avid Crossfitter and runner who is currently training for the 2012 New York City Marathon. She also enjoys embroidery (she founded Brooklyn Embroidery back in 2010) and reading (her favorite book… Read more

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We’re psyched to introduce our newest Knerd, software engineer Urjit Bhatia. Originally from Baroda, India, Urjit received his MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. He’s excited about the “amazing energy levels” at Knewton and ready to help make a positive impact on education. Urjit’s favorite book is “The Lord of the Rings” and his favorite music is Punjabi Sufi. In his free time, he enjoys photography, video games, and cooking. He can found on… Read more

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Thanksgiving: what does it make you think of? Pumpkin pie? Turkey? Or an electronic group hug initiated by a certain Knewton employee? Yep, that’s the one — for us Knerds at least. Over here in our Union Square headquarters, we’ve been experiencing an extended Thanksgiving, with offerings better than your grandma’s gravy. Confused? Here’s the deal: this Friday, while a sizable chunk of our tech team was heads-down on an important project (we’re talking all-nighter,… Read more

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When my sacred mountain homeland was shattered by the 2008 financial crisis, I nearly lost faith in my fellow man. Haunted by my investment banking past, I wandered aimlessly, traveling from place to place without honor or direction. But by the light of the falling market, I found a group of heroes, a band of Knerds, to join in the fight against evil. This is our story. Jayson Phillips, Software Engineer Name: “Black Sampson” –… Read more

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Clayton Christensen’s “Disrupting Class” was one of our recent picks for the Knewton Book Club.  I was really drawn to this quote in particular from Clayton Christensen’s “Disrupting Class:” “Teachers, parents, and students, who previously could not develop or market these learning tools, will now be able to do these things. Rather than expecting that in one fell swoop computers will be in and textbooks out, the user-generated tools will be used independently as tutorial… Read more

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