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Try

http://www.nsa.gov/careers/index.cfm

http://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+jobs

https://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tourn aments&d2=tco06&d3=nsa

You're obviously a flocking retard.

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Sun, IBM, and many others have sponsored TopCoder competitions in the past. They have since backed off of them.
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Sun sponsors several TC matches throughout the year. You have obviously never been to JavaOne because they hold one there every year. IBM, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Citicorp, the NSA and several other organizations sponsor TopCoder matches. Google has interviewed every onsite finalist for the past several years.

http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=pressr oom&d2=index

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I'm not certain as to the reasons, but TopCoder has received a LOT of criticism.
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Put up or shutup dippledick. Lets see the links.

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The problem with their approach is that it only proves that the coder can think and type fast.
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You spend 90% of your time during a TopCoder match working with graph paper.

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These contests can be a fun way to compete with your peers, but my guess is that a lot of companies have found that placing too much empahsis on the results is a good way to get burned.
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Name one! Google, Sun, IBM, Microsoft? Are there any fortune 30 software companies that haven't sponsored and hired TopCoder members?!

And concerning a followup post that stated something like 'the problems are all very hard algorithimically' or similiar - so what! What the hell is wrong with that?!

Just because basing an information transfer system on heat and mass flow is ridiculously impractical doesn't mean it can't be properly modelled.

Yes. Yes, it does. You can cobble together a system that barely works, or perhaps analyze one that already exists, but you will never optimize an arithmetic logic unit to run efficiently. You will not be able to understand why the Motorola 68000 is built as it is; you've got no chance at the P4.

And I write perfectly good code from basic principles in mathematical logic, thanks. I just look up the syntax in a code manual (or, better yet, google) and I can do all the same stuff in a programming language I had never heard of before (well, except obscure things like memory management, which some languages don't seem to support at all).

Allow me to be the first to tell you if you haven't heard this before: YOU WRITE SHITTY CODE. Memory management is not "obscure", it is better described as "fundamental to making a complex program run". Your code may or may not be difficult to follow, but I can gamble safely that it is asymptotically inefficient. Slow code that leaks memory is not good code, no matter what "first principles" it's built on.

Head to http://www.topcoder.com/ and try to keep your rating above gray. It's not going to happen.

This is stated right on the registration page, "Not only will you be in your glory of coding, but there are prizes for it too! It's more than just $155,000 but a chance to work for the hottest tech company, Google."

Also, Google offered a series of interviews to all the finalists this year.

This isn't Summer of Code, it's CodeJam. CodeJam is an algorithmic competition, it's much more akin to a track meet than a barn-raising. So there were no "winning projects", only winning solutions. You can read the final round problems, if you'd like.

You can find the final round questions here.

Sun already does. NSA, Yahoo, and Verisign are also sponsors. Looks like TopCoder runs it's own coding challenge independently of Google as well.

Sun already does. NSA, Yahoo, and Verisign are also sponsors. Looks like TopCoder runs it's own coding challenge independently of Google as well.

Sun already does. NSA, Yahoo, and Verisign are also sponsors. Looks like TopCoder runs it's own coding challenge independently of Google as well.

Sun already does. NSA, Yahoo, and Verisign are also sponsors. Looks like TopCoder runs it's own coding challenge independently of Google as well.

Factors:

• probability of having to spell a word you can't (I submit that all spelling bee participants have this same foible)
• your mental and physical health at the time of the contest
• judges

• Languages in which the spelling of the word is considered "correct"

Better. You can go and play them yourself. It's usually something like, "Find the fourth numeric digit in a string passed" or "create an implementation of data transform XYZ." Nothing too tremendously difficult, so you have to be a fast typer with excellent accuracy. Producing a low number of runtime bugs significantly helps as well.

Maybe I just me, but I don't see how being able to solve TopCoder-style problems makes you a great programmer. Great programmers write easy-to-understand, supportable code. This competition doesn't encourage that in any way.

The Mathematical Contest in Modeling is a highly competitive worldwide contest that relies heavily on programming skill. In the 84 hours after the question is revealed, teams of 3 must formulate a modeling approach to the problem, implement it and write a paper on their method. An average winning paper will be a 60-90 page research paper plus 3-5K lines of source code.

Senior undergraduates are most successful as the problems require some sophistication to approach. In the end, it's probably a way for the sponsor to cheaply generate an enormous amount of quick research on their selected topic.

PS. Thank you, TopCoder, for paying for a semester of my college education! Yay competitive programming!

777
7 7
777

I used to compete in programming competitions during my junior and senior years in a Texas high school. I competed in TCEA and UIL. I did pretty well, though there were never any cash prizes. I always had a lot of fun due to the camaraderie with fellow classmates from my school, and I guess I got recognition for winning. However, the problems were relatively easy, with no complicated graph theory problems and the like.

My school had a great computer club with a enthusiastic sponsor that went to local programming contests held by other high schools about once or twice a month. HP (previously Compaq) also holds their own annual competition in Houston, called Code Wars. I guess it was easy for me to get involved because this was part of a school club.

Now I'm in college and the ACM ICPC and high level TopCoder problems kick my butt. I need to learn more algorithms.

Want to get involved with some competitive programming, right now?

TopCoder is always looking for more members. The algorithm compeitions only take a few hours, and can pay good money. Plus discussion of the algorithms afterwards with the other members can be quite enlightening.

They also do design and development competitions, which take a bit longer, but pay a lot better. You can also pick up cash by being a reviewer for these compeitions, if you pick up enough "scratch" in the compeitions themselves.

You get individually rated on each of the 3 competitions and TC also provides some measure of employment services.

Back when algorithm competitions always paid, I earned my 1/2 of rent through them. After I graduated from college I paid my bills through a combination of design / development / reviewing. Now I work for TopCoder as a salaried employee.

Check it out, and look me up. My member handle is the same as my /. handle, just without the spaces.

TopCoder can be very rewarding. I hope every programmer that reads this at least looks at the website.

Competitive programming differs from the normal corporate paid programming practice. Competitive programming requires you to be real fast at arriving and implementing solutions and almost always the stress levels are high. In the corporate world there is an essential latency from design to implementation so the programmers have in effect more time and resources to perform their actions.

http://topcoder.com/ is a good starting point for experiencing competitive programming although the paradigm is a little different.

- ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest: http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/ (Big competition between colleges worldwide - sort of the equivalent of the IOI at the university level).

- TopCoder: http://www.topcoder.com/tc (weekly matches, yearly competition with large cash prize, also hosts the Google Code Jam (http://google.com/codejam)).

TopCoder

I prefer competitions that involve short problems.

Top Coder is a very large event, with thousands of participants. They have weekly-ish small competitions, and multiple times per year they have cash prizes ranging from $1000 to $100000.

Sphere Online Judge is another great competition, although far smaller and with no real time limit. No prizes, but much more varied and fun problems, with a HUGE selection of programming languages and completely automated judging.

Maybe they put one point at 0,0 and you got a divide by zero error? ACM put in all kinds of test data like that which is to any sane person completely impossible for the given question. When I was in the regionals a LONG time ago the ACM actually rescored one of the problems after the contest was over, adding extra test data so another team's problem would pass but ours would not (there was a conflict with the rules and apparently they thought it was easier to just cheat). We were hosting that one which is the only reason we found out.

Overall I don't put much stock in the results because it's really more of a contest about robotic perfectionism. Unlike what people might expect there is extremely little creativity or problem-solving involved; each team has huge books of problems that they laboriously solve over and over again and there are never any fundamentally new problems in the competitions. I mean not like they could come up with an entirely new type of problem for each questions, but they always follow the same pattern: each problem has 1 fundamental approach you have to use (dynamic programming, graph-coloring, pattern-matching, monte-carlo) and then it's solved. Combine that with not telling any clues about why the program failed and it's really geared towards more robotic programmers. I got out of it precisely because there was virtually no creativity or thinking involved at all, at the professional level.

Also it's virtually impossible to detect cheating... if you watch these people, they basically start coding right from the start anyway so if you already knew the problem and solution there would be little difference to see, it would just look like that team was really good. Or maybe you see test data, or somebody elbows you and says 'be sure to check for 0,0 on the mars problem'.

A much better approach was done on topcode.com... there you get to see the test data and why your program failed. Then afterwards other contestants get to look at your code for a while and purposely try to break it with their own (valid) test cases. And you get bonus points for breaking other people's programs.

School Rankings
Rank Name Member Count Rating
1 Warsaw University 25 2218.85
...
22 Indian Institute of Technology 17 1153.36
...
26 IIT Bombay 18 989.65

What's that, IITs on a meager 22th and 26th place?

Country Rankings
Rank Name Member Count Rating
1 United States 1133 2747.95
2 Poland 131 2528.69
...
19 India 273 1592.25

Only 19th place? So why is India THE outsource destination, huh?

School Rankings
Rank Name Member Count Rating
1 Warsaw University 25 2218.85
...
22 Indian Institute of Technology 17 1153.36
...
26 IIT Bombay 18 989.65

What's that, IITs on a meager 22th and 26th place?

Country Rankings
Rank Name Member Count Rating
1 United States 1133 2747.95
2 Poland 131 2528.69
...
19 India 273 1592.25

Only 19th place? So why is India THE outsource destination, huh?

you can always got to Topcoder and check out some the problems they have over there. They have all sorts of coding problems with varying difficulties.

TopCoder.com. 'Nuff said..

Hi Google,

I was a contestant in IOI 2004 (the International Olympiad in Informatics) this September. I would have participated in the GCJ also, but unfortunately Google's dates and the IOI dates overlapped. See the "important dates" here - the Qualification Round was on September 15-16, and the IOI was on September 11-18. Oh well.

(There were people walking around with GCJ 2003 T-shirts. It was pretty amusing.)

Google: Something to consider for GCJ 2005. (IOI 2005 will be on August 18-25.)

Thanks,
Yoni

He won the final match, so he got the $10k. It was just like an ordinary Topcoder Single Round Match (problems were written by TopCoder employees, not Google Employees). You can read more about TopCoder here.

I competed in the tournament and qualified (was about 160 out of 2500, first 500 made the cut) in the qualifications, but then lost in the first online round (280 out of 450 in round 1, needed to be 250).

The competitions on TopCoder are fun in general. If you want to hone your algorithm skills, I recommend you compete. And you can even put your referer as rrenaud when you sign up;).

If you go to topcoder.com and look at the leaderboard, etc., you'll see that this type of competition is actually classified as "algorithm." The site advertises "programming" contests in general, but the component contests are probably closer to what you had in mind as the ideal than what you and they both identify as "algorithm."

No, itsn't at the link, it is right here

In a race to see who can create an accurate solution in the shortest amount of time, competitors try to out-think and out-code their opponents.

Being paid.

I think you could be on to something.. What Microsoft *could* do is offer little $5 - $10 checks in the mail to developers who contribute the best solutions to small problems. Perhaps something alongs the lines of the contests at topcoder.com. This is the only thing I could come up with. I honestly can't imagine myself working for Microsoft without getting something back. In the open source community, I consider the reward for my contributions to be getting other open-source solutions that I did not make in return.

Unforunately you have to log-in to be able to read problem statements (registration is free).

For those willing to register and log-in to see them, the problem statements are at:
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1315&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1972&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1986&rd=4711

Unforunately you have to log-in to be able to read problem statements (registration is free).

For those willing to register and log-in to see them, the problem statements are at:
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1315&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1972&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1986&rd=4711

Unforunately you have to log-in to be able to read problem statements (registration is free).

For those willing to register and log-in to see them, the problem statements are at:
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1315&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1972&rd=4711
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&p m=1986&rd=4711

The first link Previewing would have been nice.. oh well.

While speed is an important factor, actually being able to solve the problems is far more important. The easy problems are easy, as they're supposed to be. The hard ones are complex enough that the vast majority of coders participating cannot solve them within the time limit.
For anyone who wants an actual example of what complexity level the solutions to these problems are, take a look at the editorial for the last TCO finals: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tourna ments&d2=tco03&d3=summary&d4=final_analysi s As for the security certificate, well, yeah, they should update that.

This is essentially what they do at TopCoder all the time. It's a neat way to show off your skills and make a little money on the coding side and a discounted development cost for the company. Pretty slick idea.

I always thought I was smart. I was never sure *how* smart. I mean, I found all school absurdly easy. And yet I got bad grades. So was I smart, and just unmotivated? Because I felt motivated, I was just so unbelievably *bored* that I never got around to doing anything.

I sort of dropped out of high school (it was an alternative high school, and I was in an alternative program within the alternative high school - I didn't go to school but wasn't called in for truancy) and played video games and worked on programming. Eventually I realized, hey, I'm not going anywhere. I should go to college.

I pulled together enough of a final year of high school (13th grade - alternative high school, remember?) and managed to get into Oberlin College, which is a pretty good liberal arts school and totally didn't fit me.

Luckily, partway through Oberlin, I found Topcoder. Suddenly I had a way to measure my skills against others, and I had something I could get better at!

As I said, I got lucky - it turned out I actually *was* smart. If you go to the site now, that's me ranked #4 in the world out of thousands (and #1 in America - Snap's Canadian, tomek's Polish, and John's Austrailian. reid is American also, so I should probably start practicing again).

However, I wasn't *that* smart. I failed my first round pretty horribly - but I looked at it, said "I can do better", and did better. I don't believe I know everything - I don't. I'm not even close. I do believe that if I don't know it, I can learn it faster than just about anyone, even if I have to invent it first. That's where my strength is, but it only comes into play if I admit I don't know something.

If you don't believe you can get any better, you never will.

Anyway. I dropped out of college for a variety of reasons (emotional problems and a serious school mismatch) and went to work for a games company, Snowblind Studios (I got the job through Topcoder, note.) I spent a year and a half on Champions of Norrath and then went back to college, at Stony Brook this time. That lasted about six months - I was an order of magnitude more bored than I was at Oberlin, I'd learned so much at Snowblind - and so I decided I was done with college. About a year before that I'd done very well in the Google Code Jam, being #1 globally before the final round (don't ask how I did in the final round), and Google said they were interested in hiring me. While I was at Stony Brook we worked out the details and, long story short, I've got a job at Google as soon as I get an apartment in the Bay Area. I'm starting in about a month.

I plan to save my money, quit in a few years, and start a game studio. We'll see how well that works.

As I said though, I got lucky. Not everyone can expect to be ranked #1 in the US - there's maybe half a dozen people who battle it out for that spot on Topcoder, with reid and I being the most consistent winners. And I wasn't expecting to get that high - when I started, I was thinking "wow, if I'm lucky, I could even be in the top hundred!"

Kinda ironic, honestly.

But here's the thing. I don't do well because I'm smart. I *am* smart, no argument, but it's not everything. I do well because I decided I wanted to win, and I asked questions about things I didn't understand, I devoured textbooks to learn the things I couldn't ask about, and every time I screwed up I went over it dozens of times trying to figure out how I could do better next time. That score you see there isn't just the result of good genetics - it's also the result of a hell of a lot of hard work and brainsweat.

So I guess that's the best advice I can give. Okay. So you're a genius. Great, you've got an advantage. Now get out there and make it work for you. Maybe that won't be going through college - if you don't, you're going to have

I always thought I was smart. I was never sure *how* smart. I mean, I found all school absurdly easy. And yet I got bad grades. So was I smart, and just unmotivated? Because I felt motivated, I was just so unbelievably *bored* that I never got around to doing anything.

I sort of dropped out of high school (it was an alternative high school, and I was in an alternative program within the alternative high school - I didn't go to school but wasn't called in for truancy) and played video games and worked on programming. Eventually I realized, hey, I'm not going anywhere. I should go to college.

I pulled together enough of a final year of high school (13th grade - alternative high school, remember?) and managed to get into Oberlin College, which is a pretty good liberal arts school and totally didn't fit me.

Luckily, partway through Oberlin, I found Topcoder. Suddenly I had a way to measure my skills against others, and I had something I could get better at!

As I said, I got lucky - it turned out I actually *was* smart. If you go to the site now, that's me ranked #4 in the world out of thousands (and #1 in America - Snap's Canadian, tomek's Polish, and John's Austrailian. reid is American also, so I should probably start practicing again).

However, I wasn't *that* smart. I failed my first round pretty horribly - but I looked at it, said "I can do better", and did better. I don't believe I know everything - I don't. I'm not even close. I do believe that if I don't know it, I can learn it faster than just about anyone, even if I have to invent it first. That's where my strength is, but it only comes into play if I admit I don't know something.

If you don't believe you can get any better, you never will.

Anyway. I dropped out of college for a variety of reasons (emotional problems and a serious school mismatch) and went to work for a games company, Snowblind Studios (I got the job through Topcoder, note.) I spent a year and a half on Champions of Norrath and then went back to college, at Stony Brook this time. That lasted about six months - I was an order of magnitude more bored than I was at Oberlin, I'd learned so much at Snowblind - and so I decided I was done with college. About a year before that I'd done very well in the Google Code Jam, being #1 globally before the final round (don't ask how I did in the final round), and Google said they were interested in hiring me. While I was at Stony Brook we worked out the details and, long story short, I've got a job at Google as soon as I get an apartment in the Bay Area. I'm starting in about a month.

I plan to save my money, quit in a few years, and start a game studio. We'll see how well that works.

As I said though, I got lucky. Not everyone can expect to be ranked #1 in the US - there's maybe half a dozen people who battle it out for that spot on Topcoder, with reid and I being the most consistent winners. And I wasn't expecting to get that high - when I started, I was thinking "wow, if I'm lucky, I could even be in the top hundred!"

Kinda ironic, honestly.

But here's the thing. I don't do well because I'm smart. I *am* smart, no argument, but it's not everything. I do well because I decided I wanted to win, and I asked questions about things I didn't understand, I devoured textbooks to learn the things I couldn't ask about, and every time I screwed up I went over it dozens of times trying to figure out how I could do better next time. That score you see there isn't just the result of good genetics - it's also the result of a hell of a lot of hard work and brainsweat.

So I guess that's the best advice I can give. Okay. So you're a genius. Great, you've got an advantage. Now get out there and make it work for you. Maybe that won't be going through college - if you don't, you're going to have

Ok first of I have a degree, so you know my perspective. You're right about a some things. It's true that you can coast through a comp sci degree and pass. It's also true that competition for a good grade is something you haven't experienced. Getting good marks (like A's) are harder. You're in an environment where you are competing with 100 or more other people for that A and only a certain percentage of A grades are allowed to be given.

The problem with certifications is that they don't teach problem solving skills or don't develop those abilities. A degree course fills those better. Have a look at the problems on the topcoder website. Note that Google and nVidia hire people from here. Note that the problems presented have nothing to do with the APIs or languages that nVidia or Google may or may not use. These problems are good examples of the problem solving ability that degrees push and certification fails to check (at least that's my impression of the MCSD stuff that MS sell)....You can pass a certification via parrot fashion learning since they teach a different set of skills - mainly basic API knowledge as far as I can tell, from having looked over the MCSD stuff 2 or 3 years ago.

If I were in a position to hire I wouldn't pass over someone that didn't have a degree, but I'd make sure that they had solid problem solving programming ability. I'd do the same for someone with a degree basically because I know that you can coast through and pass - (note that you can't coast and get good marks though because of the competion and percentage barrier on the number of people allowed certain grades). I'd do the same for people with so-called relevant work experience because I know that you can coast through work as well. Problem solving is something that will indicate their ability to learn whatever the next flavour API is.

Just don't make the mistake of tarring everyone with a degree with the same brush. I'll stick my neck out here on Slashdot ... here's a link a piece of code that I've written that solves a hard problem.

Well at least the nature fo the jobs that are going over are somewhat mindless (Java, database, J2EE) and all that wank. Thank god for people that actually solve hard problems, like the people on Topcoder.
See the topcoder rankings by country. India is 16th. I think this is indicative of the fact that the standard of problem solving there isn't high. It's also indicative of the fact that the nature of jobs outsourced don't require the brains that warrant a higher ranking. So all you retards complaining about losing jobs to outsourcing: 1) you are retards 2) try doing some real science like medicine, maths, physics or some real computer science 3) and then come back and complain about life being difficult.

Or does IBM own them too?

You might want to take a look at topcoder. Their contests award points based on how quickly you submit the problems. Virtually all of the top coders (forgive the pun) use C/C++ as their primary language because the development time is so much faster. In fact, there was a discussion on their message boards a few months ago about it, and several people switched their primary language to C/C++ in order to remain competitive.

When I was first applying, among other schools, I applied to UCI, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. They all gave varying degrees of financial aid and scholarship opportunities. In fact, the degrees of aid varied so much that it taught me some schools want you more than others. Are you dead set on going to the school you want to attend? If so, why? Will a degree from the school you've chosen make a truly night-and-day difference in career opportunities for you?

I mean, if you want to attend MIT or Harvard, then you may, in fact, initially have more opportunities as a result of graduating from those schools. But my own experience has taught me that the cream rises to the top, regardless of the school you attend. Yes, as an MIT grad you might be given extra consideration for certain jobs in the future. But your co-workers will very quickly find out who you are, no matter where you've gotten your degree. I've worked with some brilliant people that came from some very modest schools, that have done extremely well for themselves. I've worked with some smart people, too, that have come from some amazing schools, that have done just so-so. A school's name might get you consideration, but it never guarantees success.

My advice? Just get your freakin' degree, and don't be so picky about where you go. If another school offers you better opportunities, go there. Remember, both Roy Fielding, the architect of HTTP and founder of the Apache HTTP Server Project, and Paul Mockapetris, author of the first implementation of Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and creator of the Domain Name System (DNS), graduated from UCI (Go Anteaters!). It's how good you are that matters. The rest will come to you after you demonstrate that you can do stuff.

As far as specific scholarships go, well, hit up companies, bud. Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Novell, all those dudes, they're the ones with the need, the bucks, and the motivation, and I'll bet they all have some kind of academic assistance programs, including internships and scholarship opportunities. But they'll be merit-based, you can count on that, and the competition will be stiff, so start competing on TopCoder, join the ACM, and start competing with them, too, because you're going to need some serious chops.

Good Luck!

I'm one of the best programmers ever born

Cool. If you don't think it's beneath you, visit the TopCoder Arena sometime, would you?

> Those details are not provided.

Yes they are, see the sections about hardware and how the submissions are judged on the support FAQs.

Wrong. It's not a creative contest -- all competitors are given the same contest problems (check out TopCoder's site) which are reasonably small (most of the seasoned experts can sling through the set of 3 problems in an hour/hour and a half or so) and usually need to be solved with efficient algorithms (knowledge of graph theory, efficient search techniques, dynamic programming, etc. helps.) They have nothing to do with Google's product or technology.

Nice troll though.

-fren

What Our Customers Are Saying
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Over 30,000 developers are competing to build your next application. Learn how TopCoder delivers high-quality software at a lower cost than the competition.

www.topcoder.com is where the contest details are and the solutions etc. I suggest you join I've won $2000 so far although I'm an uber programmer so that's to be expected.