Interview Street has been busy building out new ways for developers to prove their skills to potential employers, and now it’s introducing a 48-hour contest to help them show off their skills. Think of it as part of a next-generation way of finding the right employer
The site already offers a web-based integrated development environment, where developers can choose from dozens of challenges, lets them input answers, then get immediate results. If they’re successful, recruiters from a variety of leading technology companies can then contact them about getting hired.
The new contest is called CodeSprint (it’s the second in a series), and it’s basically an online hackathon. Individual developers are given 48 hours to come up with solutions to as many programming challenges as they can get done, including both theoretical challenges as well as real-world problems. Cofounder Vivek Ravisankar tells me he expects that developers will be able to get about ten done within that time. “Everything will be based on performance — how fast they code, how many they get right.” Developers can also indicate which companies they hope to work for, which the companies will then see at the end of the contest. Each participant will also be able to show off their scores and resumes. You can sign up here and get more information here. The contest will begin on January 6th, 2012, at 8pm Pacific Time.
I wish there was something out there like this for prospective bloggers, since speed and accuracy are also crucial in this business. When I told that to Ravisankar, he responded by saying that in fact that was already the vision — to build out this type of service across verticals to figure out the optimal candidates for any type of job. And by the way, CodeSprint also sounds like a good experience for anyone who’s thinking about starting their own company instead of getting hired.
The company has also recently launched a beta that lets developers take a 24-hour real-world problem challenge. They’ll get a server instance and be asked to build a prototype solution within the allotted time. Check out the main site for a selection of theoretical and real-world problems.
Participating companies include Amazon, Facebook, Quora, Dropbox, Airbnb, and other hot tech companies and startups. Interview Street has angel funding from Y Combinator and Morpheus Venture Partners. Competitors for this type of developer challenge service include CodeEval and Gild.