30. HackerRank

Gamifying job recruiting for techies

Founders: Vivek and Harishankaran Ravisankar
Date launched: 2009
Funding: $12.4 million
Industries disrupted: Job boards, recruiting firms

HackerRank is helping companies ask the right questions when they're interviewing IT professionals. Just think about it: HR folks are often tasked as the first interview point when companies are bringing on IT staff. The problem is, they often don't possess the technical know-how to differentiate between a so-so IT candidate and a great one. That's where HackerRank comes in. It gives companies the tools to create programming tests that actually screen for the IT skills a company is looking for.

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Using the HackerRank's platform, a company can post their own coding challenges and use HackerRank's code checker to find the best candidate. Customers so far include Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon, to name a few.

The Mountain View, California-based company was started in 2009 by Harishankaran and Vivek Ravisankar, a former Amazon engineer, who was involved with interviewing tech folks at Amazon and saw firsthand how subjective and confusing the process could be. He figured there had to be a better way. Investors seem to agree. HackerRank has pulled in $12.4 million of financing from Khosla Ventures and Battery Ventures.

Harishankaran and Vivek Ravisankar, co-founders of HackerRank
Source: HackerRank
Harishankaran and Vivek Ravisankar, co-founders of HackerRank
"The recruiting process for technical talent is broken today. ... Too many great programmers are passed on because they may not have the right degree or brand-name company on their résumé." -Vivek Ravisankar, HackerRank CEO

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