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August 19, 2004
TopCoder
Since I started looking for a job (way back in March already) I've been looking for ways to keep up and even improve my CS abilities while unemployed. I recently stumbled upon TopCoder, which is something of a cross between an ongoing programming competition and a freelance programming hub.
On the competition side, TopCoder holds weekly rated events in two divisions: Division II for coders rated under 1200 or those just starting out, and Division I for coder rated over 1200. Each event has an easy, medium, and hard programming problem, with point values to match. Your score for each problem depends on how long it took you to submit a (correct) solution, and how well your solution stands up to other competitors' "challenges"--attempts to find bugs in your code.
On the freelance programming side, TopCoder periodically offers component design and development projects to it's members, with payments of up to $800 plus royalties to the winning entry. As your competition rating increases, you also have the opportunity to work for TopCoder testing and reviewing component submissions, managing a component project, and eventually managing whole applications for TopCoder's customers.
But most of that is well off in the future for me. The first rated competition I'll be able to participate in is August 28th. Until then, I'm aiming to do one set of past competition problems per day in the practice rooms. I've been doing pretty well; in this morning's practice I placed third out of the 20 or so people who had been through the practice room and actually submitted solutions, and my scores were pretty close to those of the original winners for those problems. I enjoy the problems and coding the solutions; it reminds me a lot of the homework assignments for CSE120 and 121 at Penn. It's also been really helpful in refreshing my memory about the Java standard API.
Posted by meschter at August 19, 2004 02:29 PM
Comments
You totally should do the freelance programming assignments. My friend worked on something with a friend that verified email addresses (took him a week, tops) and he received $200, half of the $400 bounty. Sounds like good stuff!
Posted by: tuesdayscoming at September 5, 2004 10:00 AM
I probably will at some point, as it will help me keep up my skills. It's mostly a matter of the right project coming along at the right time.
Posted by: meschter at September 5, 2004 01:59 PM