Topcoder Skill Builder Competitions

Learning at Topcoder is more engaging than anywhere else. You not only get help from the best of the best but also compete in real-time on projects and problems that will grow your skill set, which is vital in today’s rapidly changing landscape.

At Topcoder we believe in learning and growing together. This idea drove us to streamline our learning competitions and package them into something that can really help you practice and experiment with new technologies that are imperative to your growth as a Developer, Designer or Data Scientist. Also, while we establish amazing developer partnerships or get you interesting client work, we want you to be prepared for some of the interesting earning and learning opportunities that might be coming your way. ;)

We have been running fun learning competitions for many years, but it was in 2020 that we decided to streamline and strategize the way they are run. We experimented with competitions of various durations, formats and even prize monies to design a proper competition structure to help members learn and practice in the best way possible. As a result of this process, we gave birth to Skill Builder Competitions.

Topcoder Skill Builder Competition - Structure

• Host Challenge: Skill Builders have a Host Challenge. This is your home page for that Skill Builder Competition. It contains information about the technology, why it is important to learn that technology, the upcoming opportunities at Topcoder in terms of challenges and gigs, and links and guides to learning resources.

• Problem Challenges: Skill Builder Competitions have three (3) problems (easy, medium, and hard) to solve. Each problem will make you practice and learn certain aspects of that technology or language. The easy problem might even provide you with simple steps to set up and get started. Points are assigned to the problems according to difficulty and an aggregated Leaderboard is linked to the challenges for you to take a look at how you are performing in the challenges.

• Problem Statement / Use Case: The problem might have a fantasy statement or a statement very similar to a problem we have solved for a customer. Or, sometimes the problems may not even be related to each other.

• Review Types: Automated and Manual Review: A Skill Builder Challenge might have automated review or manual review. 
  – Automated Review Problems: For challenges with automated review you will be provided with sample submissions and submission guidelines which you need to adhere to for your submission to get processed by the automated processor. These challenges provide you with a review a few minutes after submitting, making it easier for you to improve your submission until you get a full score.
  – Manual Review Problems: In these types of problems your submission will be judged based on the review scorecard provided in the problem statement.

Gig Work Opportunities and Verified Skill Badge

• Gig Work Opportunities: As you know, we have a lot of Gig Work opportunities available right now. We will use these competitions to match you to these opportunities.

• Verified Skill Badge: A Verified Skill Badge will be added to your Topcoder Profile if you successfully attain 75% and above of the aggregated score when summed. So don’t hesitate to jump in, work on the competitions, and earn a job for yourself.

Prizes and Rewards

Skill Builder Competitions will have prizes and rewards most of the time. Mostly when they are initially launched or their problem statements are refreshed they will offer prize money and t-shirts as rewards. So make sure you are watching out for newly launched challenges.

Sometimes Skill Builder Competitions will have relaunched challenges for several runs. Once you have been awarded a prize, any submission in subsequent runs won’t be considered again for the prizes/awards, but you can definitely re-submit to improve your score on the Skill Builder Leaderboard.

In the event of a tie for a prize, the tie will be resolved in the following manner: the submission times of hard problem will be considered first.

• If a tie remains, then for the remaining members, medium problem submission time will be considered. The earlier the member submitted, the higher the rank will be.

• If a tie still remains, then easy problem submission time will be considered for the remaining members. The earlier the member submitted, the higher the rank will be.

• The leaderboard will show individual problem scores and the total score across weeks is available.

We are excited to kick-off our plans to help everyone skill up, have fun, and earn more money through Topcoder Gigs and Competitions. Jump in, build your skills and as always let us know what you think and where Topcoder can continue to improve and bring you competitions that are meaningful.

Find Skill Builder Challenges