Software Engineer, Instructure

The Canvas platform has grown to become a key part of a large number of educational institutions, from pre-school to higher education and beyond. Much of Instructure's workforce is dedicated to R&D, which is unusual for a company of their size, and shows their focus on innovating.

Founded back in 2008, the company has claimed numerous successes, including going international and hitting the $1 billion market cap. It has made a number of acquisitions, most recently of Concentric Sky and LearnPlatform. The former saw Instructure incorporate Sky's "Badgr" into its ecosystem as "Canvas Badges", whereas the latter adds evidence-based insights to the platform - both cementing its commitment to building the education industry's most integrated teaching and learning platform to support lifelong learning.

Instructure was itself acquired in 2024 by KKR, which will support a broad-based equity ownership program for Instructure employees. This strategy is based on a strategy of employee ownership as a cause of stronger companies. The move is a promising one considering KKRs track record of acquired companies, but time will tell how Intructure fares.