The engineering culture and infrastructure at HackerRank is built for speed. We build and deploy changes to our production infrastructure many times a day (if required). That is one of the joys of being a SaaS provider, and we pride ourselves on our agility and responsiveness. There is a downside to this agility as well. At times customers are surprised by some change and find it a bit annoying when there is no accompanying note explaining the change or the rationale.
Today we are thrilled to launch a new in-product notification system to address this concern. Just look for the megaphone icon on the top-right of the title bar after you login to your HackerRank for Work account. If there are any updates on this blog since your last visit to your account, they will appear as a neat list which you can then click to read all the detail. Using this medium we plan to keep you update on new features, enhancements, and key bug fixes, notifications of scheduled downtimes and all such matters related to our service.
We hope you like this, and we’d love to hear what you think of it. Drop us a note in the comments below, or write to us at support@hackerrank.com
Introducing DroidRank: Source, Screen, and Hire the Best Android Developers
With the explosion of mobile devices across the planet talented mobile developers have become a lot like gold: always worth their weight, and always in short supply. Unfortunately for hiring managers and recruiters, not only are the talented mobile developers in short supply, but they are hidden in a seemingly endless sea of, shall we say, under-talented mobile developers. These unfortunate truths make the hiring process for mobile developers difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
In an effort to always keep engineering teams stacked with quality talent, we’re proud to announce that HackerRank is expanding it’s award-winning product, HackerRank for Work, into the Android development market with DroidRank. If talented mobile developers are indeed golden nuggets, then DroidRank is your metal detector for that crowded beach of mobile developer candidates.
DroidRank is here to revolutionize your entire mobile developer acquisition process by eliminating some of the biggest hurdles in the current recruitment methodology. For example:
Start with an inherently stronger candidate pool If you could apply to a professional football team by just sending in a resume, would you? Probably. And I bet millions of others would, too, which would completely dilute that team’s talent pool. But, what if you knew you had to take the field for a test run with the pros? Maybe you won’t send in that resume after all. The same rationale applies to coders. Knowing that DroidRank’s unique coding challenge is a prerequisite for a job will help self-eliminate a bulk of unqualified candidates which saves you time and boosts your overall talent pool.
Leverage meaningful screening techniques
Due to screening limitations, hiring managers have been mostly limited to generic Java coding tests or theoretical Android coding questions. Neither of which is ideal when you’re looking for the best fit for your organization. With DroidRank, the recruiter and hiring manager get to design and build the perfect Android coding challenge for that role within their organization.
Standardize the methodology across candidate pool
After a number of different candidates spread across multiple weeks it’s likely that your questions may have varied a bit and your judging criteria may have fluctuated (perhaps with your mood that day?). DroidRank lets multiple candidates take the same Android coding challenge so that candidates (and their code) can be measured objectively across the candidate pool.
Avoid coding environment gotchas
Every hiring manager knows that no two coding environments are the same. This can make actually testing a candidate’s code cumbersome as you try to fine-tune your compiler settings to properly run a candidate’s code. More wasted time for the hiring manager. DroidRank solves this by leveraging it’s own built-in browser-based IDE that compiles candidate code in real-time for hiring managers to review.
Evaluate the full range of a candidate’s submission
Many hiring managers in the past have had to take a leap of faith on candidates based on resumes or interviews. With DroidRank, a hiring manager can schedule a coding challenge during a phone interview. They can see how a candidate codes in real-time and review it fully later. But, they can also review the finished product (the completed Android app) by simply scanning a unique candidate QR code on their own mobile device. This finally gives hiring managers a full view of their candidate’s coding techniques and capabilities.
At the end of the day, we put a ton of effort into building our new DroidRank platform. We added support for multi-file projects that form the building block for our Android app source trees. We also added the Android SDK tool chain to our build system to provide a simple workflow to the users. But, what we really built into our new DroidRank platform was ‘love’.
Recruiters will love how quickly they can design a coding challenge that is specifically tailored for their role. Candidates will love how easy and engaging it is to participate in a coding challenge (especially when compared to the dullness of past interviews). And, last but not least, hiring managers will love how thorough they can be when evaluating their candidates across an equal and objective playing field.
If you’re ready to start hiring the best of the best then be sure to check out our DroidRank page for more details, and if you think you’re up to the challenge, give our DroidRank sample challenge a try.
