Kick Start, one of Google’s Coding Competitions, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this season! Open to all skill levels, Kick Start gives beginner to advanced coders the chance to develop their skills and learn more about competitive programming through algorithmic and mathematical challenges designed by Google engineers.
Hone your skills with Coding Practice with Kick Start
In addition to Kick Start’s eight online rounds, we’re also hosting several Coding Practice with Kick Start rounds this season. These four-day sessions remove the time constraints and scoreboard, so you can take your time working through problems and get some extra practice without pressure. You’ll receive dedicated Googler support and detailed walkthrough videos to help you level up and prepare for the next Kick Start round.
We sat down with a few members of the team behind Coding Practice with Kick Start to learn more about the competition and why it’s valuable for coders of all levels.
Brandon McCutchen, Campus Outreach Program Manager, Google
Brandon hosts events that connect college students with Google career opportunities — including bringing Coding Practice with Kick Start to various universities.
“Coding Practice with Kick Start is great for skill development and confidence because it exposes students to the types of questions they would see in a coding competition, a technical interview and ultimately in the real world of software engineering. I’ve seen over and over again that the more exposure a student has to solving technical problems, the more comfortable they get tackling them. Coding Practice with Kick Start gives them that exposure without any of the pressure. And after participating, students will always have those practice questions as a reference, which will hopefully help them approach interviews and coding competitions with confidence.
Kick Start in general is a tangible opportunity for students to grow their skills in a fun and exciting way. It provides incredible hands-on experience for students to actually code in a way that is meaningful for their development early in their computer science careers.”
Deeksha Kaurav, Software Engineer, Google
Deeksha is a software engineer on the Search Platforms team at Google, which helps developers build features for Search experiences. Deeksha is also a core member of the Kick Start team, creating problems for the Coding Practice with Kick Start sessions.
“Coding Practice with Kick Start is a great way to practice before participating in the Kick Start coding rounds. It gives you plenty of time to solve problems with constant support from Googlers throughout the session.
It’s really rewarding to be part of a team that helps developers across the world improve their coding skills. Kick Start helped me improve my own programming skills when I was in university, so I’m happy to pay that forward.
Coding competitions always pushed me to think outside the box, which has helped me in my career. They also provide a great platform to show and get rewarded for your programming skills. Some advice — always read the question and constraints carefully before jumping into the solution. There is something new to learn with every problem, so never leave them unsolved. And review the analysis on g.co/kickstart/archive for the problems you couldn’t solve.”
And here’s what some of our participants had to say about their experiences:
“Coding Practice with Kick Start helped me learn about the different types of competitive programming problems. And since we had more time, I could work on fixing my common mistakes, like not reading the problem statement carefully on the first pass. The problem walkthroughs were also very helpful, and I’m glad I can revisit them when I have a little more time.”
“I really liked that Coding Practice with Kick Start gave me an entire week to complete problems at my own pace. It helped lower the barrier of entry for me, since I’ve never participated in an online coding competition before and I was hesitant to sign up at first. The introduction session also clearly explained the format of the official Kick Start rounds, giving me a good sense of what I was walking into and the types of problems I would need to solve.”
Article by Lizzie Sapiro Santor. Read full article here.
