Tell HN: Khan Academy is hiring full-time devs | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Khan Academy is hiring full-time devs

163 pointskamens33 comments

Only sending this link to HN for now. We're building our dev team, full details here: http://www.khanacademy.org/jobs/dev

Instructions to apply are at the bottom of that link, and if you have any specific questions feel free to email me. ben+HN@khanacademy.org

(For those unfamiliar w/ Khan Academy, check out Sal's recent TED talk: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/salman-khan-talk-at-ted-2011--from-ted-com)

View on HN

http://www.khanacademy.org/jobs/dev

and

http://www.khanacademy.org/video/salman-khan-talk-at-ted-201...

Changing the world is cool and all, but the real reason to go after this job is to work with Ben Kamens and Jason Rosoff. Kamens was the big boss of engineering at Fog Creek when I interned there and is the most humble and capable developer I've met. Jason Rosoff was also at Fog Creek with Kamens and is the kind of designer a developer loves to work with.

So, Web Ninja Rockstar Badass Developers, apply. DO IT.

There are few other world changing endeavors that can match the scalability of impact of the Khan Academy.

Haven't encountered it, but would be great to see translations done on a larger scale to touch the wider world.

Additionally, perhaps at a later date, would be interesting to see the same topics covered by additional instructors (and rated) available on the site to provide variation in teaching styles.

Nevertheless, even today, this is the best thing going on in the education field. Kudos to Sal.

Man, I'd love to contribute to Khan Academy, especially since they've given me so much already. I can't count the number of times Sal's videos have helped me in my AP Physics and Calculus classes this year. It's too bad I'm still in high school.

I actually had an idea, a couple of weeks ago, that it would be really cool to implement some kind of functionality that brought together real time chat and a "blackboard" capabilities (Canvas and node.js?) to the site, so people could discuss certain topics and simultaneously draw out diagrams/problems/etc. I feel like Q.A. for homework/learning could be done a lot better then what we have currently right now (WikiAnswers, Yahoo Answers, etc). Good luck, I'm sure tons of awesome developers will jump at this opportunity.

http://www.mathim.com/ and http://typewith.me/ and http://www.mangamasters.com/paintchat/

Thanks, I didn't know about those. Typewith.me looks pretty well done. My friend and I actually used to use flockdraw when we wanted to draw free body diagrams and circuits. It would be interesting to see, though, how integrating a such a drawchat system into Khan Academy would play out, considering how fast the community is growing and the type of audience it is developing.

Would probably make sense for someone to just write a site agnostic 'drawchat' plugin.

Grockit, a test prep startup, does this. They're setup to give test questions to be answered in a given time frame with ongoing chat between room members and there is an optional white-board for drawing on.

The drawing section isn't built by them, it's actually built by an HN poster running, I believe, ExpatSoftware. You could probably make use of his project... Actually, I checked. They're just using Twiddla. I think Twiddla is pretty much what you want. You can free hand what you want and you have an etherpad a click away. Tying it in to KA would be left.

Kamens, is there a way to view all the unanswered questions on Khan Academy? I think it might receive a fair amount of traffic if there was.

Not at the moment, no. We're tackling some lower-hanging fruit, but this sort of community tool is obviously on our horizon.

Oh man. If I weren't in school I'd jump on this so fast. KA has helped tremendously in my self-study. Part of the reason I chose Python as my current learning language instead of Ruby was so I can contribute exercises to their stats lectures. Could you use a (non-remote) intern this spring/summer?

Yes, we have a couple internship spots still open. Same story, send resume/side-projects/etc to jobs@khanacademy.org

I was going to ask the same question about interns (Saw a posting a few months ago about internships there). I sent my resume over.

Says a lot about HN that you are only posting it here for now.

So tempting, this idea of changing the world of education is. If I wasn't neck deep in my own ventures, I'd definitely be applying.

Pretty tempted too. Having one of those Jobs & Sculley "sugar water" moments.

In case you were wondering about the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sculley#1983.E2.80.9393:_S...

"Steve Jobs successfully sealed the deal with his legendary pitch to Sculley, asking him whether he preferred to "sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"."

A humble, semi-off-topic suggestion: develop the knowledge maps for all the (planned in the near future) courses first, then let anyone submit both video lectures and evaluation questions and answers.

I think the most compelling aspect of the Khan Academy is Sal Khan's ability to explain stuff. Diluting that with other instructors could weaken the main selling point of KA.

That's a valid point... my suggestion would be a longer-term suggestion, when KA is popular enough to attract star educators in fields Khan hasn't touched yet.

I absolutely agree with this suggestion. Another variation: bring excellent teachers in other (non-Khan) subjects together to devise learning maps, and then have the experts compete against each other to produce the lectures most favored by Khan Academy users.

Seems like this would result in much faster growth in the breadth of KA's videos.

Why don't you need to be a Lisp expert?

Because Khan hasn't yet redone his lectures in the original Latin.

It's the only language we don't use.

Oh great. I was afraid I would never find a place that could use my Malbolge skills.

Love your work guys! Keep up the awesome job!! Found your videos on "Valuation and Investing" priceless and so easy to comprehend.

Where are you guys located?

Mountain View, CA. (Mailing address at http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team)

From the article:

"Flexible working environment. We're based in Mountain View, but working remotely is not off the table."

Do you have plans to hire any UI designers in the near future?

Compare: "Khan Academy is hiring full-time profs". Who needs those? Everybody can teach, apparently.

This was modded down, possibly for incomprehensibility, but... is the Khan academy planning on hiring any profs?

Is it still the one dude doing all the videos?

Well I don't know about others, but I moded it down because it was "jerk-like" behaviour. The same comment could have been written in a polite and professional manner, but the op chose to write in an insulting manner.

Following the recent thread on HN quality, I've decided to be much more aggressive in downvoting impolite comments.

"Insulting" is a gross exaggeration. That's this forum's style! Where do you think I’ve learned it from?

You and the parent both admit that I have a point. That’s good enough for me.

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