HackerRank Wants To Build A One-Stop Shop For Technical Phone Interviews

When it comes to hiring engineers, many companies now use a real-time web platform like TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield and Y Combinator alum HackerRank to see how candidates write their code. That way, interviewers see not only the code candidates write, but also get an insight into the thought process behind it — and how they handle mistakes.

HackerRank relaunched earlier this year when it added this real-time feature and today, it is announcing an interesting new feature to its hiring platform and some key hires that set the company’s hiring platform up for the future.

On the technical side, it is adding real-time audio to the platform. This new feature uses Twilio’s backend to make it very easy for the interviewer and candidate to set up their calls.

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According to HackerRank co-founder Vivek Ravisankar, the idea here is to create a “one-stop shop for the technical interview, bringing together all the tools a recruiter needs to conduct a stellar interview.” The next obvious step in this evolution is to add video, which is also on the company’s roadmap. As Ravisankar told me, the team wanted to focus on building a full replacement for the traditional phone interview process first and then work on improving it with features like video. 

HackerRank is clearly doing something right. It has signed up a large number of major companies to its site and Ravisankar tells me it has hit a seven-figure run rate.

To continue on this path, the company also today announced two additions to its board: General Sentiment co-founder and chief science officer Steven Skiena and IGN co-founder Mark Jung. The company also tells me that it is building out its team with a number of key hires of former LinkedIn and Zynga employees, including Zynga’s former Senior Director of People Operations Brian Schneider, who will oversee talent and operations.

While it looks like the hiring platform is currently on the forefront of the HackerRank’s roadmap, the company continues to also run the HackerRank community. There, programmers can participate in a number of coding challenges every month. It will continue to operate this side of the business, but in terms of monetization, its enterprise hiring platform is likely driving most of its growth at this point.