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Indonesian Selected by Google
At the India Code Jam, only the hottest software writers
need apply
Mar. 26 heralds the opening of the spring season in India,
a day celebrated with riotous color and revelry. But in
one corner of Bangalore, India’s info tech hub, the sunny
Saturday is heavy with tension. At an Internet cafe, a group
of engineers and math majors, all in their 20s, hunch over
terminals, ready to write some killer code - and, with luck,
launch careers with one of the world’s premier tech companies,
Google Inc. (GOOG )
It’s the Google India Code Jam, a contest to find the most
brilliant coder in South and Southeast Asia. The fastest
will win $6,900 -- and more important, the offer of a coveted
job at one of Google’s research and development centers.
At the stroke of 10:30 a.m., the contestants begin, emerging
exhausted three hours later. “It’s been incredibly difficult
and awesome,” says Nitin Gupta, a computer science undergrad
at the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay.
Google has staged Code Jams in the U.S., but this is its
first such bakeoff in Asia, and the response is huge. Some
14,000 aspirants registered from all over South and Southeast
Asia for the first round in February. The top 50 were selected
for the finals in Bangalore: 39 from India, 8 from Singapore,
and 3 from Indonesia. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” says Robert
Hughes, president of TopCoder Inc., the Glastonbury (Conn.)
testing company that runs the Code Jams. “Wherever the best
talent is, Google wants them.”
And the winner is...one of these clever IIT grads from India,
right? Surprisingly, no. Ardian Poernomo, a third-year undergrad
computer engineering student at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological
University, lands in first place. The No. 2 finisher, Pascal
Alfadian, a second-year student at the Universitas Katolik
Parahyangan in West Java, is Indonesian, too. Poernomo didn’t
commit to taking a job with Google, however: He may go for
a PhD in computer science in the U.S.
Still, Google now has a new pool of Asian talent to choose
from. According to Krishna Bharat, head of Google’s India
R&D center, all the finalists will be offered jobs.
And Google needs them. The search company has been frustrated
by its inability to find top-notch engineers for its year-old
Indian center, according to industry insiders. Its Bangalore
staff now totals 25, but it was hoping to have signed up
at least 100 engineers by last December. Bharat refuses
to discuss the company’s difficulty in filling its ranks,
except to say: “It has been a challenging year.”
WAR GAMES
Google’s frustrations in India stem from two factors. One
is the red-hot job market in Indian tech. Engineering students
are assured a job a year before they graduate. But Google
makes things hard for itself by having some of the most
exacting hiring standards going. The contest is an example.
Participants are tested on aptitude in problem solving,
on designing and writing code, and on testing peer-written
work. Finalists are asked to create and test software for
unique Web searches and to get from point A to B in a city
with a minimum number of turns. The final challenge is programming
a war-based board game, a task so complex that only winner
Poernomo completes it.
For Google, the Code Jam will serve as a short cut through
its hiring regime. Candidates normally go through a seven-stage
process that can last months -- and, at the end of it, they’re
more likely to be rejected than hired. Much of that screening
can be set aside for Code Jam winners.
For Wunderkinder like Poernomo, Google can be patient. Stanford
grad Jon McAlister was the 2001 winner of TopCoder’s U.S.
Collegiate Code Jam, but didn’t sign up with Google until
2004. He eventually rejected competing offers from Goldman,
Sachs & Co. (GS ) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) “Google
is the genuine engineering company,” says McAlister. Google
hopes its India finalists think so, too. " (Josey Puliyenthuruthel
in Bangalore/IM)
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