Iron Coder 2015: Three Georgia Tech Students Win Cash, Job Interviews with Top Atlanta Technology Company, Cardlytics

Georgia Tech students swept the 2015 Cardlytics Iron Coder competition this year, taking home all three of the top spots. Cardlytics, (www.cardlytics.com), a purchase-based data intelligence platform, created the software engineering competition as an innovative way to identify top high-tech talent at Atlanta-area universities.

The winners receive not only cash prizes but also job interviews with Cardlytics. The Cardlytics Iron Coder Software Engineering Competition was held Saturday, September 26th at Cardlytics’ office in Ponce City Market. Forty area college students from Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State University, Georgia State University and the University of Georgia took part in the competition.

The first place winner was Albert Shaw, a Georgia Tech junior from Johns Creek, Georgia. This is the third year Shaw has placed in the competition. This year, he won a $2,000 prize.

• Second place winner was Alex Kuzmich, a Georgia Tech junior from Virginia Highlands, near midtown Atlanta. Kuzmich won a $1,000 prize.
• Third place went to Zhiyuan Lin, a Georgia Tech senior from Changshan, Hunan, China. Lin was the overall winner at last year’s Iron Coder competition.

The students were given three hours to solve a series of ten complex problems by developing a working software prototype in any technology stack (e.g. Java, C#, C, C++, etc). The winners were determined based on accuracy and speed.

“As Cardlytics grows our team here in Atlanta, it’s vital to add the right people with the right skill set. Georgia Tech and other local area universities have great computer science programs and talent,” says Michelle Strader, Global Head of Talent at Cardlytics. “We were excited to offer the Iron Coder competition in our own offices this year. This is the fourth year of competition and once again, the competition proved to be a fantastic talent outreach and recruiting tool.”