Criteo launches competition to find 100 new software engineers

Criteo, the online search advertising banner company, is looking to employ 100 engineers to strengthen its research and development team based at its Paris labs.

The European R&D hub aims to boost the performance of the predictive algorithms that Criteo applies to digital advertising. To help find the right engineers Criteo has launched its “Code of Duty” competition, an initiative that puts engineers through a series of complex algorithmic tests and offers prize money too.

The coding competition invites participants to solve a complex algorithmic problem using computer programmes like Java, C++, C#, C, Javascript, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, VB.NET, Objective-C or Lua.

The competition is open to applicants across the European Union. On 30 June, 30 selected finalists will be invited to take part in the grand final in Paris. The top 10 finalists will share €20,000 in prize money.

Franck Le Ouay, co-founder of Criteo, said: “This year we’re looking for 250 people, including about 100 for R&D. Although our headquarters are in Palo Alto, we’ve chosen Paris as our research centre because France is a very attractive location in terms of innovation.”

Last month Cisco announced plans to create 115 new jobs in its R&D facility in Galway, Ireland. The new jobs will cover a range of areas including communication and collaboration, cloud-enabled desktops, mobile applications, desktop virtualisation and real-time web communications.