A friend of mine got quite excited and spent half a night reverse-engineering the challenge to dominate the leaderboard when we tested the challenge before launching online.
Now, the online JavaScript Speed Coding Challenge is live officially, and everyone can compete.
The deal is that top competitors can take a fast track through the Toptal recruiting process. But there are more prizes:
- Apple Airpods (1st place)
- $100 Amazon gift card (1st-5th)
- Toptal t-shirt (1st Place - 20th Place)
The challenge consists of multiple micro-tasks that you solve while the 3 minutes timer is ticking. It starts with simple tasks like doubling a number:
box.double = function double (x) {
//return x doubled
};
But as you solve them, the complexity of tasks increases (as do the points you gain per task):
box.swapHalves= function swapHalves(x) {
//x is a string. Cut x in half and move the second half to the beginning
//'1234' will become '3412', '12345' will become '34512'
};
The Leaderboard looks very competitive already - I cannot get into the top 5 even though I'm the developer behind the challenge:
But here comes the fun part! There are no limits to your creativity in terms of how you decide to complete the challenge. This competition is not just about knowing JavaScript and coding fastly. It is also about how creative you can get to get into the top 5 ;)
I am personally very excited to see the app I coded going live at scale, and I hope to get the feedback of the dev.to community:
- how can the challenge be improved to make it more fun?
- are there any issues that I didn't catch before it went live?
- do you have an idea for a new coding question?
Applications Outside IT Field?
What I've been also thinking about is whether there is any potential for using the same "challenge" approach to attract talent in fields other than IT?
For example, writers can compete in knowing grammar. Travel agent candidates may have their relevant questions tested as well with questions like "What is the tallest building in the world", "What is the Australia's national flower", etc. Real estate agents can compete in understanding the local law, auction rules, etc. Do these examples make sense?
This is my very first post here at dev.to, and I can't wait to get engaged in discussions with the community!
Disclaimers:
One. I'm the developer behind the challenge.
Two. The link used in the article is my referral link. When signing up with Toptal later here, use the same email you used in the challenge, and we both can get a bonus when you get your first job at Toptal.
Three. In this article, I do not represent the Toptal team.
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