You may be new to CodinGame, and not really know what to expect from your first experience. So we thought it would be good to pass along a few useful tips to help you make the most out of your coding challenge.

1. Practice before the event

Training is necessary to master standard input and output during a CodinGame, which is why we all the more recommend that you to practice if it’s your first challenge. Previous editions’ exercises can be found here.

To code your solution, you can use our online IDE or your regular environment and copy/paste your code. Just make sure that your solution correctly compiles when pasted into our IDE (we have defined memory limits and compile-time for each languages, see the FAQ to learn more).

2. Check your email the day of the challenge

2 hours before the event starts, we’ll send you an email containing a link to connect to the contest. And despite our best efforts, in some cases, emails from us still happen to land in spam boxes… :-

3. Update your registration preferences

In the days before the event, we frequently add some new companies to the list of recruiters. So if you’ve chosen to apply for jobs, you’ll be glad to know you can change your choices up until the challenge starts. To do so, simply follow the link we noted in your registration email for the challenge.

4. Be on time

On D-day, the challenge starts and ends at the same time for everyone; it has a fixed global duration. If you are late to the contest, the time lost will unfortunately not be retrieved. However, once logged in, time management during CodinGames is quite flexible and allows you to manage your time as needed. You can go back to a previous question to improve your solution or spend more time on a question than the average time indicated to solve it (average time appears on top of each question) if you like. But beware: once you’ve clicked the ‘Submit’ button (which validates the last exercise and your participation all in all), you won’t be able to go back.

5. Choose your favorite programming language

No, C++ is not the only one available language at CodinGame! There IS a drop down list with all the other programming languages to choose from 😉 What’s more, you can change languages for each question.

6. Read the exercise statements carefully

Solutions that handle all possible use cases are valued most highly in the scoring system. Equal scores will eventually be ranked according to the time spent. So you’d better choose quality over rapidity!

7. Add your own data sets

Aside from testing your solution with the available data sets, you are welcome to create your own input data sets using the shell script of the IDE. This may require a bit of practice but can be very useful in the end.

8. Save hundredths of seconds

Use CTRL+Enter to compile instead of using the “play” button.

9. Retrieve your code if your browser crashes

Or if your whole system is down, who knows? 🙂 In this tricky situation, the best thing to do is rush to your emails, open the “CodinGame GO GO GO” message, and re-click the link to join the challenge. You will then be happy to see that your code has been retrieved from your last compilation. Needless to say: try to compile frequently enough that you don’t lose precious work.

10. Get live support on the chat

It’s always good to feel you’re not alone while intensely coding during a programming contest and struggling to find the right solution. Immerse in the lively atmosphere of the challenge and join us on our “Yo’s Tavern” chat  (available from the IDE) to take a break when needed, to get support from the CodinGame team if something is not clear, and to debrief with other participants once the competition is over.