If you haven’t done so yet, please take the “drchrono hacker challenge” before moving forward. If you have already taken the challenge then read on. We are hiring for a number of roles, you can find a list of career descriptions here.

The Hacker Challenge

We have a lot of talented hackers take the “drchrono hacker challenge” in many different languages, there are a lot of programming languages. You can take the challenge in any language. We love all languages and each have their benefits, but we give preferential treatment to the languages most relevant to working at drchrono.

Our preferential languages to use in the challenge are: Objective-C, Python, Javascript, Erlang. Also if you know Swift, let us know, the challenge doesn’t support Swift.

Other languages frequently used for webdev are also impressive to use to use for the challenge: Ruby, Clojure, Go, Perl (to some degree), C/C++ (to some degree).

We don’t use these in drchrono, but will be impressed if you test well using them: Rust, OCaml, Haskell, Lisp, Lua, Racket, F#, D, Scala, PHP.

The languages least relevant to drchrono are: C#, VB.NET, Java.

Our reasoning: The healthcare hackathons consists of mainly Objective-C and Swift. So our preference is you take the drchrono hacker challenge in something related to what you will be doing here. You can give the challenge a try in the language you know best, then take the challenge again in Objective-C, that will impress us. We are ok with you learning and taking our challenge a few times if needed.

We’re looking for well-rounded web developers, ideally with experience in all layers of the stack.

If you really want to impress us, take our “Hard Hacker Challenge“.

The Cram Period

Once we call you in for a healthcare hackathon, you will have a chance to learn as much iOS — Objective-C and Swift as possible before coming in to impress us with your skills. (We also do Django / Python hackathons for people who are looking to join the front/backend team)

Swift is very different then Objective-C, but knowing either one of these is a skill we are looking for. Think of Swift as a more direct programming language then Objective-C.

iOS developers are blessed with infinite power from Apple’s Cocoa Touch framework and a thriving thrid-party open source ecosystem. The downside is that with great power comes great, uh, complexity. Being a successful iOS engineer is as much about mastering Apple technology as fighting with complexity. Cocoa Touch and the Objective-C developer community at large has established many conventions and patterns such as delegation, MVC, GCD, etc. Learn them. They will help you find clarity from complex structures. But good developers limit them with the goal of simplicity in mind, always. ~ Daniel D. from the engineering team.

For those of you who don’t know Objective-C or Swift very well we recommend taking as much time as possible before coming in to learn as much iOS programming as you can. I can’t stress enough that knowing iOS programming will make it a successful hackathon for you.

I would recommend learning iOS Programming ~ 4-6 hours a week to really get prepared. Our stipulation is that when you come you are ready to hack away on an iOS idea.

Here are a couple of good resources to get you started, we develop for iOS 8 with a little iOS 7:

Apple Developer Documentation

• About Objective-C
• Introduction to Coding Guidelines for Cocoa
• Cocoa Core Competencies / Model-View-Controller
• App Programming Guide for iOS / About iOS App Architecture
• Advanced Memory Management Programming Guide / About Memory Management
• Development Center, Apples office API documentation
• WWDC Videos, watch and learn, from Apple

Read These

• Introduction to MVVM Pattern from objc.io
• Grand Central Dispatch In-Depth from raywenderlich.com
• C Programming Language, know this book front to back

Understand the Difference Between Objective-C & Other Languages

• Whats the difference between Objective-C, C, C+, C++ and others that i dont know?
• Difference between C and Objective-C?

Advanced Concepts

Great Learning & Courses

• Free: Developing iOS 7 Apps for iPhone and iPad from Stanford
• Free: Developing Apps for iOS (SD) from Stanford
• Paid Course: iOS Developer Nanodegree from Udacity
• Paid Course: Intro to iOS App Development with Swift from Udacity
• Paid Course: Online Video Courses from Udemy
• Online Learning from from Lynda

For iOS Esoterica

• http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/
• http://blog.bignerdranch.com/

Focus on making a small apps instead of just reading docs, show us what you built when you meet us in person!

Optional: Impress us by learning the drchrono Application Programming Interface API also if you have time, it isn’t required but it would be great to see what you think about it and what you can do with it. Work on one of these projects and show it off to us when you are at the chronoplex. Doing one of these projects is a great way to learn Django, learn about healthcare, leverage an API and will for sure impress us during your code review the last day of your healthcare hackathon … more about the hackathon below. Learn a bit about RESTfuls API with this tool.

The Healthcare Hackathon

The drchrono hackathon is 3 days, so you have only so much time here in the chronoplex to do something impressive.

definition: hack·a·thon
An event, typically lasting several days, in which people
meet to engage in collaborative computer programming.

Generally the 1st day is getting acclimated, meeting the team, getting use to the Mac, the development environment, and the software we load onto it for you. Not to mention learning a bit about Mountain View. We are a startup and there are about ~35 people on the team, say hi to people as they walk by! Let people know who you are, what you are working on. Talking to people will give you fun insight into our culture, team and some fun conversation.

It is ok to bring your own laptop to the hackathon, it is also ok to use Google, StackOverFlow and the like for the hackathon. Of course you will have the Internet as well while you are here.

If you want to have an extra day to explore, just let us know and we will add an addition date onto your hotel room, on drchrono’s dime. You can look around and be a tourist for a day.  Apple is about 30 minutes away, Y Combinator is about 15 minutes away and Google is next door to the chronoplex. San Francisco is just a CalTrain ride away. Just let Barbara our office manager know before you come out so we can book the extra day for you!

The “chronoplex” address –

328 Gibraltar Dr, Sunnyvale, CA, 94089

For a successful hackathon, we give you an idea, a code base to work, and you start hacking from there on the idea. Show us progress and take feedback to make refinements. Use your imagination and our suggestions to implement the idea. In order to do this, you’ll definitely have to know how to do a Objective-C and a little Swift, which typically involves coding in:

• Objective-C and Swift ( not related to this hackathon )
• Git + Bash (awesome if you know it but not essential)

The Code Review

At the end of the hackathon on the last day before you leave, we will do a code review to see how well you did on the task at hand, code quality and functionality. We review code to see how well you think on your feet, hacking away, and to see if the actual “thing” you built works and how much progress you made. We want to see what you’re thinking was, the issues you ran into and why you did what you did.

Also during the code review the team would love to see other projects you have worked on if you have them. We love looking at side projects, past work at other companies and any side apps. This helps us see how you program, tackle problems and see what you’re interested in.

The code review generally takes an hour.

The healthcare hackathon is the main determinant if we hire, the code and if we are a good culture fit.

Some insight from hackathon candidate and why it is worth going for the hackathon.

Our Culture

We see every developer we hire as artists, generally, the developers work when they are most productive, though being at the chronoplex is critical, we are a startup, we all need fast feedback loops and communication, as the platform is created, this applies across all teams from sales to customer success.

We try to minimize the meetings also to two per week with the developer team so you can focus on what is most important, building the platform.

Getting Hired

If the engineering team loves your code, we hit it off and you feel like drchrono is your future home … we will make you an offer fast within a matter of days. We are looking for the right people over just hiring anyone and seeing you in action hacking away and meeting in person speaks volumes on both sides.

After the healthcare hackathon, generally the decision is made in about 10 days if not before then, at this point we will give you an update on everything and if all goes well, we will make an offer!

~ Life is short, build stuff that matters.

Note: Thanks to the drchrono engineering team for reading drafts of this.

Article by Daniel Kivatinos, COO and cofounder, drchronoDaniel drives direction, brand vision, and business strategy for drchrono. Daniel’s focus has been in the technology space since 2001, as a software engineer and entrepreneur. Daniel holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Computer Science & Psychology from Stony Brook University.