One advantage of working for a growth-stage company is the many educational opportunities that are institutionally available.
And thanks to the general open ethos of many startups in Silicon Valley, there is a wealth of knowledge also available for those entrepreneurs and hustlers not ensconced in a hipster office cube funded by VCs.
Of course, much of this is inbound marketing for hiring talented engineers. Nonetheless, those seeking to be constantly improving and learning in this environment can really benefit from the variety of these technology videos and educational assets.
Airbnb's Tech Talks
Airbnb's engineering team goes out of its way to fly the nerd flag, tweeting from @AirbnbNerds and offering regular Tech Talks that are shared with the world.
This series earns top billing for its external focus. Yes, the point is to create a more knowledgeable engineering staff. Yet the series is shared with the world, and features speakers from other companies, such as Stripe and Coinbase, talking about issues that are important to the wider tech landscape.
The ability to connect companies together and share knowledge is essential to creating a foundation for success in an ever-changing world, and that's very clear with the connections that the Airbnb Tech Talks make.
The full playlist - 43 strong - is below. Some favorites include Coinbase, yCombinator, and Airplanes, Ships and Missiles. Paul Graham dropped this nugget: "That's something YC looks for in startups: Ideas that grow organically out of the founders' lives."
Facebook Engineering
Decidedly more geeky than Airbnb's Tech Talks, the social media juggernaut's Engineering Team offers a variety of different videos that go deep into specific concepts for engineering both on Facebook's platform and elsewhere.
The videos can be viewed here, and be warned that they are generally complex offerings for the super-geeky set. For those proudly ensconced as a super-geek, please email me and explain these concepts to me!
Twitter's University
Twitter has one of the most complex websites out of the engineering teams listed here, with an extensive and easy-to-browse interface of videos. Open source receives a full treatment here, so developers and engineers can learn about common open source issues as well - and not just Twitter.
Twitter's feed includes videos such as Past, Present and Future of the Aurora Scheduler, State of Mesos 2014, and Cluster Management at Google.
Etsy's Code as CraftCalled Code as Craft, Etsy has invested in a full ecoystem outside of its own website to support knowledge and education in the community. It livestreams its regular speaker series, and has an archive up here.
Below is a video from Twitter's Raffi Krikorian - many of these companies share speakers and grow the knowledge base together company-by-company.
NB: Book image courtesy Shutterstock.