Geeky.vn pits Vietnamese developers in an online battle royale to impress employers

The survival of the fittest — that has always been the credo of capitalist societies and even multiplayer online games, where good players rise to the top while bad ones get blasted into oblivion.

Now, a new, intriguing platform in Vietnam, Geeky.vn, is bringing a literal interpretation of this concept to hiring programming talent. Essentially, it’s a gamified platform for developers to solve puzzles and win prizes.

Free for developers, the site has unveiled its first puzzle this month as well as the top prize of VND 50M (USD 2.4k). While it will start off as a ranking platform, the team has publicized its long-term plan to be a tool for employers to seek out talented developers.

As a country-specific platform, only Vietnamese individuals who can attend the final round in Ho Chi Minh city may apply.

While certainly a new concept in Vietnam, the team has managed to secure a bunch of high-profile sponsors — 2359Media, a mobile development company, and VNG, a leading Internet company in Vietnam.

Geeky.vn is part of a growing worldwide ecosystem catering to matching developers with employers and solution-seekers. In India, there’s InterviewStreet, a platform for employers to test coders with programming challenges.

In the United States, platforms like TopCoder are using competitors as a means to help enterprises find technical solutions. Meanwhile, Kaggle is doing the exact same thing for data scientists in the realm of big data.

As demand for programming skills rise worldwide, we can expect these platforms to take off in a big way. One big problem facing Human Resource professionals right now is that very often, it takes a programmer to evaluate another programmer.

Platforms like Geeky.vn and others could fill these gap by acting as a go-between for human resource professionals and the developer community. With their expertise and scalability, these platforms can help narrow the field for prospective employers.