Business
Letting Hackers Compete, Facebook Eyes New Talent
- Monday, February 6, 2012
- By Tom Simonite
As it readies for an IPO, the social network puts engineers, not HR, in charge of a global search for young programmers.
Top coder: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discusses a software problem during a hackathon event in London.
Credit: Rafal Wieczorek
Late this January, some 75,000 people around the planet sat in front of their computers and pondered how to make anagrams from a bowl of alphabet soup. They were participants in the Hacker Cup, an international programming battle that Facebook organized to help it find the brightest young software engineers before competitors like Google do.
After three more rounds of brain teasers, Facebook will fly the top 25 coders to its head office in Menlo Park, for an adrenaline-soaked finale this March that will award the champion $5,000. In return, Facebook gets a shot at hiring the stars discovered along the way.
To read the entire article you must log in:
Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed