CodeSignal
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| Industry | |
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| Founded | 2014 |
| Founder |
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| Headquarters | |
| Products |
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Number of employees | 30 |
| Website | codefights |
CodeFights is a San Francisco-based technology startup that applies game mechanics to online coding challenges.[1] for both instructional and recruiting purposes [2]. In November 2016, CodeFights reported that it has 500,000 registered users [1], the majority of whom are in the United States [3][4].
Funding
As of July 2017, CodeFights has raised a total of $12.5 million in 2 rounds from 23 investors [5]. The company raised an initial $2.5 million in seed funding in April 2015 [6][7], which included personal investments by Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo and GoDaddy VP of Engineering Marek Olszewski [8]. CodeFights raised $10 million in November 2016. [1] The Series A funding round was led by e.ventures. Other investors in that round included SV Angel, A Capital, Granatus Ventures [6], and Felicis Ventures [2].
Company History
CodeFights was founded in 2014 [9][10] by Tigran Sloyan, Aram Shatakhtsyan, and Felix Desroches [9]. The challenges on CodeFights were initially 3-minute player vs. player coding competitions in which users debugged existing code [8]. It has since expanded its offerings to include codewriting tasks and several modes that are not competitive in nature [4].
Game Modes
The CodeFights platform has six distinct game modes: Interview Practice, Company Bots, Arcade, Tournaments, Head to Head, and Challenges. In all of these modes, the CodeFights system runs a user’s solution to a coding challenge against tests, and the solution is only accepted when all test cases are satisfied [3]. The first game mode on the platform was an early version of Head to Head, which appealed to competitive programmers [8].
Company Bots
The Company Bots mode went live in November 2015 [3]. CodeFights partnered with Uber to create a company bot, an Uber-branded gaming challenge [7] that would help them to find and evaluate the code of candidates who could solve the types of technical problems the company faced [11]. CodeFights now has 14 company bots.
Interview Practice
The most recent game mode on the platform is Interview Practice. CodeFights launched a beta version of the service in February 2017, then an expanded version in June 2017. The Interview Practice game mode is specifically targeted towards job seekers who are preparing for engineering technical interviews [12].
Recruiting Tool
In addition to being a learning tool for users, CodeFights is also a skills-based recruiting platform [9] [12]. Customer companies pay CodeFights to connect them with users who have done well on challenges [10]. Recruiters at these companies can only contact engineers who have explicitly indicated they are open to new jobs [6]. For each candidate that a company hires, CodeFights receives a fee equivalent to 15% of the new employee’s yearly salary [1]. According to the company’s own reporting, 20% of people who CodeFights connects with a company go on to receive job offers. [1] As of October 2016, 30% of the placed candidates were women, which was 30% higher than the Silicon Valley average [13]
Customers
CodeFights customers include Evernote.[1][13], Uber [1][10], Thumbtack [1], Dropbox [1] [10], Asana [10], and Quora [10]
See Also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Petroff, Alanna. “Play this coding game. Score a job in Silicon Valley.” CNNTech, 17 November 2016.
- ^ a b Fuhrmans, Vanessa. “At These Startups, HR Comes Before the Ping-Pong Tables.” The Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2017.
- ^ a b c Dishman, Lynda. “You Might Apply For Your Next Job By Playing A Mobile Game.” Fast Company, 29 February 2016.
- ^ a b Bhattacharya, Ananya. “Tech companies are trying to fight unconscious bias in hiring by making job candidates fight coding bots.” Quartz, 31 October 2016.
- ^ CodeFights Crunchbase profile. Crunchbase. Accessed 12 July 2017.
- ^ a b c Lardinois, Frederic. “CodeFights raises $10M Series A round for its skills-based recruiting platform.” TechCrunch, 17 November 2016.
- ^ a b O’Brien, Chris. “Uber teams with CodeFights to create UberBot, a game to test coding skills of potential hires.” Venture Beat, 5 November 2015.
- ^ a b c Weinberger, Matt. “This startup thinks competitive programming could be more popular than college football.” Business Insider, 23 September 2015.
- ^ a b c Zimmerman, Eilene. “Uber Hires Programmers Who Can Win A Fight With Their Robot.” Forbes, 20 January 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f Simons, John. “New Site Helps Outsiders Land Tech Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal, 16 November 2016.
- ^ Myhrvold, Conor. “Building the #Uberbot on CodeFights for Uber Engineering.” Uber Engineering Blog, 20 October 2015.
- ^ a b Lardinois, Frederic. “CodeFights launches a new practice mode to help developers prepare for job interviews.” TechCrunch, 22 June 2017.
- ^ a b Craig, Ryan. “The hiring game.” TechCrunch, 16 October 2016.