Hiring coders becomes easier with CodeBunk
CodeBunk was created to change the way interviews are conducted in the technology industry. Companies attract talent from around the world and conducting interviews remotely has become essential especially for talent that have specific needs.
To this effect methods currently used by companies are antiquated and do not aid the facilitation of interviews especially for software developers. That's what Yousuf Fauzan, founder ofCodeBunk and a software developer, learnt from his experience of interviewing with different companies.
During one such interview, Yousuf was amazed at the number of different tools required to achieve what seemed a basic task. It so happened that he raised this very point with his interviewer, with whom he ended up having a long discussion on the need for a better solution. The motivation to solve this problem led to him spending a lot of time and coming up with this startup.
The fact that CodeBunk was conceptualised by someone who himself fits the target market has been a major contributing factor in the appeal CodeBunk has had ever since its launch, a few months ago.
CodeBunk is an all-in-one package aimed to enable effective facilitation of a technical interview in the hiring process of a software developer.
Current methods typically employed by companies interviewing candidates remotely involve manual workarounds, whereby three separate software products are used to achieve the desired outcome:
- The interviewer calls the candidate on Skype or another such tool;
- The interviewer uses an online text collaborative tool such as Google Docs or Collabedit to communicate programming questions to, and receive solutions from the candidate;
- The output of the written code is tested on a separate compiler, or alternatively the interviewer painstakingly reads through every line to ensure there are no errors.
CodeBunk combines the above three steps in a robust and user-friendly tool. The process on CodeBunk is as follows:
The interviewer creates a new "bunk", which is effectively a virtual interview room, and and shares the bunk with the candidate being interviewed. Within the bunk the interviewer is provided with the functionality to start a video/audio call with the candidate.
The candidate types his/her code in the new bunk, and the interviewer is able to instantly execute the code as a result of CodeBunk’s inbuilt compiler, which is able to compile 8 programming languages, and provides smart indentation and syntax colouring.
Of course other solutions are available in the market (Codassium, Coderpad, Collabedit) however they lack the ability to compile code and/or the functionality to set up a video call with candidates. As a result, none of them provide the interviewer with a stand-alone solution for technical interviews, which is what CodeBunk looks to achieve.
CodeBunk was created as a solution for online interviewing of software developers in the tech industry. Based on what CodeBunk achieves and the manner in which it achieves it, as per the founder, Yousuf, there is a strong case for companies to revisit their hiring processes.
Quite a few companies still fly in candidates for interviews, and the experience provided by CodeBunk is professional enough for them to consider doing it over the Internet, hence saving them a significant amount of money and time. For companies that already conduct remote interviews, CodeBunk allows them to replace the multiple independent solutions with one simple-to-use tool.
Since the core functionality is essentially a tool that enables sharing a workspace over the internet, CodeBunk also works for other market segments. The ability to write and compile code in a tool that also takes care of formatting of code, coupled with the ability to share your work with other developers makes CodeBunk a useful tool for collaboration amongst developers.
As far as students are concerned, CodeBunk can be seen as a simple to use compiler (in 8 languages) with the functionality to communicate with others. This opens the avenue for online tutoring and troubleshooting. "I believe this is quite relevant to students of this day and age, where services on the internet are increasingly replacing static desktop solutions," said Yousuf.
CodeBunk has an active presence on social media, with people on Facebook and Twitter really taking to the concept. The response from the developer community, from both experts and novices alike, has been promising, with the product currently attracting over 200 unique users every day.
"We do our best to keep in sync with their expectations, through constant interaction with them, as we attempt to further glean what they expect from a product like CodeBunk," noted Pradeep Susarla, the Business Development Lead at Codebunk.
According to him the three main features of CodeBunk can be described as follows:
- A user-friendly development toolkit for software developers of any skill level, allowing for compilation in 8 different programming languages. Most other tools in the same space are just text editors, and do not provide the developer with the all-important ability to compile their code.
- An online tool that allows developers to collaborate in real time and share their work with each other as required. This aspect of CodeBunk is an essential feature for the interviewing process, whereby interviewers can watch candidates code in real time.
- Video/audio chat facility, which is the final piece in the puzzle. The only replacement to face-to-face interaction is, well, face-to-face interaction, and CodeBunk recognises this vital aspect to ensuring seamless interaction between people, whether it is developers collaborating or companies interviewing candidates
As of now they haven't yet approached investors. The next step for them as expressed by Yousuf is to ensure we take the right approach to reach out to more people and get the product across to our target markets: developers, tech companies and students.
"An important point to make here is that we intend for CodeBunk to be accessible and useful to as many people as possible," he added. They are planning to reveal their pricing model soon. and hope to ensure that certain features will remain free--primarily those that benefit students, as it is as much about serving the wider society as it is about creating a successful business.
Quite an interesting approach I must say. Would like to see how that shapes up and whether it would result their traction overall.
As of now at the core of CodeBunk is its developer Yousuf Fauzan, who's a graduate from IIT Kharagpur. Pradeep Susarla, who also graduated from the same institution, handles the business development for the startup. According to Pradeep both of them are strong advocates of living life to its fullest.
"This is the driving force behind the way we work, and we would like to think that this attitude results in a vibrant product. We believe it is essential to not see work as 'work', for work to be an enriching and enjoyable experience, and to achieve this we do our best to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Most companies seem to have lose sight of the importance of this," he said.