Gild, a TechCrunch Disrupt startup that combines social gaming with career advancement for developers, has raised $2.4 million in new funding led by Globespan Capital Partners.
Founder Sheeroy Desai says that the company pivoted to focusing on developers after seeing how many engineers were joining Gild. Essentially, Gild is a place for developers to share their skills.
Gild allows developers to submit their resume to professional opportunities like any other job posting site but adds a different twist. The companies posting jobs set up competitions, like ‘Brain Buster’ programming puzzles and other coding tests and job-seekers complete these challenges on the site, receive their scores, and are ranked accordingly.
You can engage in multiple competitions to help boost your chances and Gild will let you improve your profile by completing certification tests and other challenges. As you perform on Gild and win competitions, you can also earn badges to show your skills and proficiency. The site also tells you how many other people have applied for the same job, and even takes a step at telling you how you compare, based on your stats.
Gild also allows members to build profiles of their skills and search for and compare their skills with other developers around the world. The startup says that it now has nearly a half a million members, and is being used by Oracle, Sapient, Harrah’s, Salesforce.com, eBay, VistaPrint and others.