For most computer science majors today, the notion of earning a six-figure salary right after graduation seems an artifact from the dot-com era. But for Daniel Wright, the big payoff came one year early and after only two days of work. Wright, who just finished his junior year, won the TopCoder Collegiate Challenge in April at MIT—and earned $100,000.
TopCoder pits students from some of the nation’s leading engineering schools against each other as they attempt to write algorithms for a set of problems as quickly as possible, then review and challenge each other’s submissions. Wright beat out 15 other finalists from powerhouses such as Caltech, Georgia Tech, MIT and Purdue.
It may not sound like a spectator event, but tournament organizers did their best to pump up the adrenaline level, Wright says. “They placed several computer monitors around the room and invited people to watch.”
In addition to winning the money, Wright—who was hired for a summer job at Microsoft a week before the competition—has evidently improved his career prospects. Several companies have courted him since his TopCoder victory. Meanwhile, he has to decide how to spend his prizewinnings. Maybe he will buy a secondhand car, Wright says—after paying for his engineering degree.
