How hacking can get you a dream job

"We have really good coders in India. But they're just not presented well. It isn't only programmers from IITs and NITs who are good and who are hired by big companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon," says Sachin Gupta, co-founder of HackerEarth, a Bangalore-based startup which provides a platform for graduates to better present their programming skills and allow a smarter way for companies to hire coders with the skill sets they want.

Sachin, who previously worked at Microsoft and Google, and his friend Vivek Prakash, had initially decided to put the programming skills they picked up from IIT Roorkee to build a website called MyCareerStack that helped students gear up for technical interviews. But this led them to realize that there was a more fundamental problem that needed to be solved -- showcasing programmers to companies that need specific skill sets. 

HackerEarth takes development away from the desktop to a web platform, where companies can present a number of coding challenges that their coders can try out. The platform then checks for the health of the code through various parameters. Companies can also use the platform as software-as-a-service and post regular challenges. The platform can support about 12 programming languages including C, C++, Perl, Python. 

"This way companies can see whose code is good and allows them to pre-screen candidates and shortlist a few candidates that they want, rather than going through hundreds of resumes coming from the human resources department," says Vivek, who has extensive experience in coding and had interned at Google and Amazon. 

Avlesh Singh, CEO of WebEngage, a company that builds customer engagement suites, says developers come with different skill sets, and "different realworld problems require different kinds of skill sets to solve". 

Currently the HackerEarth platform has about 10,000 coders registered and on an average a challenge sees about 1,000 participants. Sachin and Vivek are developing the platform to include company pages and user profile pages. 

HackerEarth was part of the inaugural batch of the GSF (Global Superangels Forum) Accelerator in 2012. HackerEarth is planning a pan-India hacking challenge called "India Hacks". 

Hackers from all over India will be given 24 hours to solve 5 to 6 problems. The event will give coders a chance to win a cash prize and the top ten programmers will be given a chance to visit the offices of Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, Flipkart Walmart Labs and Sourcebits in Bangalore.