About 2 years ago, I was introduced to a website called 'Top Coder' by a guy I worked with. His words to me were "If you ever want to find out who the better programmer is, we can go here and compete". I was very intrigued, but we never did compete. From that point on, I regularly logged in to Top Coder's site and reviewed the available competitions. I thought to myself, "I wonder if I'm good enough to compete against people I don't know". I never did compete, only watching these competitions from a distance. One time I did download a distribution for a development competition that was in progress, but I just decided I hadn't the time to compete, so I didn't. Well, one day I get a call from some one at Top Coder, they were wondering what I was up to currently, as they liked my skillset and was wondering if I'd be interested in interviewing! I had just started a new gig somewhere else, and thought it best to wait it out a bit and see where that gig went.
For the unenlightened, Top Coder hosts the worlds best programming competitions in the world. They use this process to build great software. If you think you've got what it takes to compete, you should do so asap, because not only can you prove it, but you can make money doing it.
Anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about Top Coder, and the allure for working at Top Coder never waned. I went through the interview process, and with great avidity, I accepted an offer to join. My first day was officially October 1st, and I'm never looking back. The feeling I get from everybody so far is this is the best team I've ever joined. I've spent a few years contributing to open source software to build my skill set as a programmer, but after going through the interview process and competing for the first time recently, I now wish I had spent more time competing. That aside, here's to my joining a company I think has the best process in the industry, and a company I am super proud of being associated with.
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