[insightcheck]

I appreciated the quote from your article that: "Based on information from insiders, Google’s coding competitions engaged more than 300,000 software engineers external to Google, annually. These coding competitions assisted in the hiring of thousands of software engineers each year, who were directly sourced from these events."

These views reflect that Google Code Jam was a very significant source for recruitment. In contrast, when I searched about whether Code Jam was a significant part of Google's recruitment strategy, one of the top results on Reddit on r/cscareerquestions really underplayed the recruitment part, by non-Google employees giving advice about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/p7ioku/w...

The r/cscareerquestions commenters there could still have a point that it was more direct to take other approaches to applying to the company instead of Code Jam, but the general dismissive attitude of the top-upvoted commenter (e.g.: "No benefits. If anything, might even be harder to get interviews cause the guys grinding for those contests don't have time to make a proper resume.") really overemphasized an opinion based on speculation, instead of taking a more balanced view that recognized that Google Code Jam was run with a large motivation to recruit developers.

[baobabKoodaa]

There's a difference between "does Code Jam help attract quality candidates to Google" and "does participating in Code Jam help a candidate in getting a job at Google". Presumably, Google cares about the former, and participants care about the latter. Both statements can be true or false to various extents regardless of each other.

[yodsanklai]

> In contrast, when I searched about whether Code Jam was a significant part of Google's recruitment strategy, one of the top results on Reddit on r/cscareerquestions really underplayed the recruitment part

Google has a very standardized recruitment procedure. Once you're in the pipeline, you're judged with the same standards as everybody else (algo interview, system design...). Whether you're a Code Jam champion or not. Where Code Jam could help is to get contacted by a recruiter, but a simple referral could be enough for that, so it's not that hard to enter their recruitment pipeline.

Also, Code Jam problems are much harder than what you'd get in a coding interview, so it's not the best use of your preparation time to land a job at Google. Leetcode problems are more similar to what they ask.

[nostrademons]

It's there to find the non-networked developer - the kid in their mom's basement who is not in Silicon Valley or possibly not even in the U.S. and doesn't know anyone who works at Google, but learned to program on their own. Ironically this is the sort of developer that HN says can't get FAANG jobs because they lack the credentials and connections.

[astura]

"People, mostly children and very young adults, talking confidently about topics they have no idea about" can basically be Reddit's official slogan.