Mustafa Furniturewala
CTO at Coursera
v.11I work with the teams that build Coursera for 100M+ learners. This is my personal site: what I've worked on, talks and press, side projects, and notes from what I'm studying.
About
BACKGROUND
I joined Coursera in 2014 as an engineer on core platform services, became a director of engineering in 2018, and CTO in 2024. I'm responsible for technology strategy and the infrastructure, data, and IT teams.
NOW
Most of my time goes to AI in the product, like Coursera Coach, Ollie, and Project Helix, and to how our own engineers use AI tools. As head of engineering I wrote Coursera's engineering vision and worked on how we measure developer productivity.
EDUCATION
PREVIOUS
BEYOND CODE
I've played USTA league tennis since 2014, with teams at Mountain View TC (4.0, 7.0 mixed, and 8.0 combo). 92 matches so far, and I've won about half of them.
View tennis record ↗Work
Chief Technology Officer
Coursera
Responsible for technology strategy and the infrastructure, data, and IT teams. Some of what we've worked on:
- •Project Helix, an AI-native skills platform
- •Coursera Coach, our AI tutor
- •Ollie, an AI microlearning app with short lessons in a scrollable feed
- •AI-dubbed courses in Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, and German
- •Personalized career recommendations for what to learn next
Head of Engineering
Coursera
Led the engineering organization and joined the management team.
- •Invested in engineering operations and in how we measure developer productivity
- •Wrote and rolled out Coursera's engineering vision
VP of Engineering
Coursera
Led the product and platform engineering teams.
Director of Engineering
Coursera
Managed several engineering teams and platform projects.
Software Engineer → Senior Engineer
Coursera
Joined Coursera and worked on core platform features and services.
Engineering Roles
Twitter, Evernote, Citrix
Engineering roles across consumer and enterprise platforms, including Evernote's developer platform.
- •Worked on Evernote's iOS and Android SDKs for third-party developers
Featured
Press, talks, projects and study notes. Each list links to the full page.
Press
- 17 tech leaders share how they're using AI agents at work Business Insider · October 9, 2026
- Announcing Project Helix: A skills platform for the AI era Coursera Blog · September 9, 2026
- Coursera's Ollie borrows social media's playbook and even replaced its CTO's TikTok habit Business Today · July 14, 2026
Talks
- The Future of Learning: How Generative AI is Reshaping Education University of Michigan, Center for Academic Innovation · Keynote · 2024
- Innovating in the AI Moment: Industry Giants at the Forefront of Change ASU+GSV Summit · Panel · 2024
- Why Is an Engineering Vision Important? Faros AI · Conversation · 2024
Projects
- Read Later React · Node.js · PostgreSQL
- Slidora Next.js · TypeScript · AI/ML
- Dad Made Games Three.js · TypeScript · Vite
Study notes
- Reviewing Agent-Written Code — Risk Tiers, AI Reviewers and Convergence Building with AI · 19 min
- Durable Execution for Agents — Temporal, Vercel Workflows, Inngest, Restate and DBOS Agents in practice · 99 min
- The AI Compliance Map for a US SaaS Company Security and compliance · 100 min
Interactive decision lab
CTO Simulator: Ship an AI Product
Five calls teams make when shipping an AI feature: model, context, evals, data, and rollout. Pick yours and see how they trade off. A simplified model I built, not a benchmark.
Elsewhere: Creating an Engineering Vision (Medium · Coursera Engineering) Smart bookmarks (US Patent 10657834)
Contact
ADVISORY AND TENNIS
I advise Vumedi and Informed K12 on engineering and technical strategy, and I'm a founding member of Enrich. I also give tennis lessons to kids 10 and up in the South Bay. I've played USTA league tennis since 2014 and have a 4.0 rating.
Book a timeCurrently based in Sunnyvale, CA