Competitions · Computer science · Google Code Jam
Google Code Jam has been discontinued.
Google no longer runs Code Jam. If you were planning a season around it, this page explains what it was and which contests now occupy the same ground.
What to do instead
Where Code Jam competitors go now.
Code Jam sat at the top of open competitive programming - free, global, and open to anyone over sixteen. Several contests still occupy parts of that ground.
USACO, for school-age competitors
Free, open worldwide, and structured as four divisions from Bronze to Platinum. The closest thing to a ladder in competitive programming, and the natural home for a student who was aiming at Code Jam.
Meta Hacker Cup, for the same audience
Facebook - now Meta - has run its Hacker Cup since 2011 on a very similar model: open entry from sixteen, several online rounds, and twenty-five finalists competing for substantial cash prizes.
TopCoder, for continuous practice
Contests two or three times a month rather than once a year, free to join at any time, with winners’ code published after each round.
CCC, if admissions are the point
Set and graded by Waterloo, and read by Waterloo in admissions. A different kind of value from Code Jam’s, and one that survives it.
For the record
What Google Code Jam was.
Code Jam ran from 2003 and was created to identify top engineering talent for Google. Its last edition drew close to a hundred thousand competitors from more than 150 countries.
- Ran from
- 2003
- Organiser
- Purpose
- Identifying top engineering talent
- Who could enter
- Anyone aged 16 or over with an interest in programming and algorithms
- Format
- A series of algorithm problems to be solved within a fixed time
- Languages
- Any language and any development environment. Answers were submitted online with the language noted, as a single file of no more than 100 KB
- Rounds
- Five - a qualification round, three online rounds and the world finals. Everything but the finals was online
- Scale
- Nearly 100,000 competitors from over 150 countries in its final edition
- The finals
- Twenty-five competitors, at a different Google office each year, for cash prizes and a trophy
- When it ran
- Registration in early April, the contest from mid-April, and the world finals in August
The rounds
How the field narrowed from a hundred thousand to twenty-five.
The structure is worth recording because several current contests borrow from it, and a student who understood Code Jam’s shape will recognise theirs.
| Round | Format | Who advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Qualification | A 27-hour window, though far less time was usually needed | Anyone reaching 30 points |
| Online round 1 | Three sub-rounds, A, B and C. Competitors could enter any or all of them until they advanced | The top 1,500 of each sub-round - 4,500 in all |
| Online round 2 | A single contest | The top 1,000 |
| Online round 3 | A single contest | The top 25. Everyone who reached this round received a limited-edition Code Jam shirt |
| World finals | At a Google office, on Google’s own equipment - competitors could bring their own keyboard and other permitted items | The winner |
After every round, all competitors could read the submitted code of everyone who had done well. That openness was unusual and is one of the things competitors valued most about it.
What it paid
The published prizes.
Recorded here because the figures still circulate. Note that the source gives two different first prizes.
First place
Given as USD 15,000 in the prize table and USD 10,000 in the summary. The two do not agree, and the contest no longer runs, so neither can now be confirmed.
Second to fifth
USD 2,000 for second, USD 1,000 for third, and USD 100 each for fourth and fifth.
And a shirt for a thousand people
The top 1,000 competitors received a limited-edition Code Jam shirt - for many entrants the realistic target, and a genuinely coveted one.
Plus expenses for finalists
Google covered finalists’ competition-related costs including visa fees, up to USD 100 of visa-related travel and up to USD 30 a day for meals. Everything else was the competitor’s own.
Talk to an advisor
Hanlin does not coach Google Code Jam. Ask what it does coach.
The services below are real, but not for this competition. An advisor will say plainly whether there is a route here and what is worth entering instead.
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Google Code Jam, briefly answered.
For anyone who arrived here planning to enter.
Is Google Code Jam still running?
No. Google has discontinued it. Pages inviting registration are out of date.
What was it?
An international programming competition run by Google from 2003 to identify top engineering talent. Competitors solved a series of algorithm problems within a fixed time, in any language they chose.
What should I enter instead?
USACO is the closest equivalent for a school-age competitor - free, open worldwide, and structured as four divisions. Meta Hacker Cup runs on a similar model to Code Jam’s. TopCoder offers contests two or three times a month rather than once a year.
How big was it?
Its last edition drew close to a hundred thousand competitors from more than 150 countries, narrowing to twenty-five finalists.
Who could enter?
Anyone aged 16 or over. There was no upper age limit and no qualifying requirement.
Are the past problems still useful?
The problems themselves remain good practice material for the contests that are still running, since the algorithmic ground is the same.
Related
Contests that are still running.
Where to put a season that was planned around Code Jam.
Programming competition enquiries
This one is over. The season is not.
If a student was preparing for Code Jam, the algorithmic work transfers directly to contests that still run. Tell us where they had got to and an advisor will map a replacement season.