Twitter buys open source training outfit Marakana, launches ‘Twitter University’

Twitter has acquired open source training company Marakana, as it launches Twitter University — its programme for providing extra training for its engineers.

“As Twitter has scaled, so too has our engineering organization,” the social network’s senior vice president of engineering Chris Fry says. “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 apparently builds on several existing efforts at Twitter, and build on some of its current offerings, including orientation classes for new engineers to iOS Bootcamp, JVM Fundamentals, Distributed Systems, and Scala School.

“Most of these classes are taught by our own team members,” says Fry “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”.

Marakana meanwhile has reportedly been working with Twitter for some time now and Twitter says that it will continue to contribute to open source software, in the vein of Marakana. It also says that it aims to release some of the Twitter University content online to anyone who’d like to learn.