CodeSignal

CodeSignal is an American skills-based assessment platform founded by Tigran Sloyan, Aram Shatakhtsyan, and Sophia Baik in February of 2014. CodeSignal operates under the company BrainFights, Inc., which was its initial name at the founding. The company has since changed names twice, from BrainFight to CodeFlight, and finally to CodeSignal in July of 2018. CodeSignal's products are developed to assist companies in acquiring, promoting, and developing talent fairly through unbiased assessments. CodeSignal utilizes game mechanics that offer developers of various skill levels online coding challenges for instructional and recruiting purposes.

CodeSignal offers two versions of its product—CodeSignal for Developers and CodeSignal for recruiters. Both versions of the software have similar features; one is used for improving skills, whereas the other is used for hiring or promoting talent.

At launch, CodeSignal was an online platform for developers to practice and further develop coding skills through various head-to-head challenges and competitions with other devs. The program was meant to encourage developers to improve skills and problem solve through conversation with other developers on the website.

In the first two years of launch, the platform hosted six game modes for skill development and preparation for real-world experiences and application of skills. In each mode, CodeSignal systems run user solutions to coding tests and challenges; the solution is only accepted by the system once all test cases are satisfied by the provided code. The six different game modes include:

• Interview practice
• Company bots
• Tournaments
• Head-to-head
• Arcade
• Challenges

Interview practice is the newest addition to CodeSignal for Developers and is reportedly the most popular function of the software application. The mode was added to the line-up of games in February of 2017, and an expansion followed four months later in June. Interview practice is directly aimed at developers looking to find new jobs or positions specifically in the technical engineering field. Interview practice can be used to answer realistic interview questions, discuss problem solutions within the online community, and master integral computer science topics.

Company Bots was initially launched in November of 2015 to simulate real-world challenges that companies are experiencing within their infrastructures. This specific assessment was developed with the idea of solving on-the-job problems that are occurring at varying companies to better prepare job seekers. Company Bots also submits the accepted solutions to real-world companies and reveals the engineers that found them to recruiters to consider them for employment.

Bot challenges consist of developers working against a bot to solve a coding issue over several rounds of varying difficulty. The bot and the challenger work alongside one another at every stage, and each participant receives points based on speed and accuracy. When a participant feels satisfied with their work, they can submit the solution for evaluation. If the solution is accepted after evaluation, the participant may then submit their work to the recruiter of the company that hosted the bot challenge.

In November of 2015, CodeSignal and Company Bots partnered with Uber to develop Uberbot, a challenge specifically branded for Uber job seekers. Uberbot was hosted on CodeSignal in an effort to identify new coding talent and assess the skills of potential hires. CodeSignal has since created personalized bots for over 15 other companies.

CodeSignal for recruiters, previously known as CodeSignalR, is another skills-based assessment tool that uses a data-driven approach to recruiters and companies to assist in the hiring process and to find the most qualified candidates for the jobs that are open. CodeSignal Recruiter was initially launched in October of 2017 and is defined as being the sourcing, testing, and interview platform for technical recruiters.

The CodeSignal Recruiter platform enables recruiters to contact engineers in the CodeSignal community who have performed well in challenges and games and will also signal recruiters to profiles when developers flag that they are open to new opportunities. Once contacted, recruiters can provide potential hires to complete a series of custom tasks and assessments for further review of skills; those custom tasks allow recruiters to identify plagiarism, access live recordings, and time the tasks within an integrated development environment.

CodeSignal Recruiter is integrated with Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software, including Greenhouse, Lever, and SmartRecruiters, which allows recruiters to manage candidate data between CodeSignal and the recruiting platform that sends coding tests, evaluates results, and manages candidate lifecycles.

Within the first six months of the initial launch, CodeSignal had launched over 1,500 challenges, which garnered the attention and participation of 70,000 developers who found solutions to over 1.5 million challenges. CodeSignal continued to grow rapidly at a rate of 30%-40% month-over-month, as reported by the company in April of 2018. Additionally, CodeSignal reported in August of 2017 that it had reached over 1 million active users in CodeSignal for Developers.

As of December of 2020, CodeSignal had reported that it had developed a customer base with over 200 companies, not all of which are listed. Some of the customers include Robinhood, Uber, Postmates, Zoom, and Gusto.