Historically, the US dominated in the computer programming and overall technology industry based on delivering the highest quality of education in science, mathematics and computer science. Studies have shown that the key to a pipeline of high-quality programmers starts with learning math, science, and programming at an early age. As other parts of the world have advanced their educational systems, great programmers now come from other places.
There are many international programming competitions to evaluate the skill sets in all forms of coding disciplines such as the Google Code Jam which is hosted and administered by Google and HackerRank which is a free coding practice website and they rank 1.5 million developers. These competitions measure the speed and accuracy that people finish program development challenges.
In both of these studies, China came in at #1 overall for the best performing computer programmers. When it comes to specific types of challenges, China is the best performing country in data structure, mathematics, and functional programming. Clearly China has done an incredible job in developing young minds to become skilled programmers. China has achieved these impressive results by introducing their large population of students to effectively learn programming in middle school and high school and this is complemented by the investment in a top tier university system.
Here are the overall rankings from the HackerRank:
Quite surprisingly, the United States comes in at 28th place.
While Chinese coders perform the best overall, it is interesting that there are separate technology disciplines that HackerRank tests with challenges and other countries excel in specific domains:
There are many international programming competitions to evaluate the skill sets in all forms of coding disciplines such as the Google Code Jam which is hosted and administered by Google and HackerRank which is a free coding practice website and they rank 1.5 million developers. These competitions measure the speed and accuracy that people finish program development challenges.
In both of these studies, China came in at #1 overall for the best performing computer programmers. When it comes to specific types of challenges, China is the best performing country in data structure, mathematics, and functional programming. Clearly China has done an incredible job in developing young minds to become skilled programmers. China has achieved these impressive results by introducing their large population of students to effectively learn programming in middle school and high school and this is complemented by the investment in a top tier university system.
Here are the overall rankings from the HackerRank:
- China
- Russia
- Poland
- Switzerland
- Hungary
- Japan
- Taiwan
- France
- Czech Republic
- Italy
Quite surprisingly, the United States comes in at 28th place.
While Chinese coders perform the best overall, it is interesting that there are separate technology disciplines that HackerRank tests with challenges and other countries excel in specific domains:
The US still ranks the highest with world class universities for engineering and computer science. We don’t know what the future holds for developing the world’s best programmers but clearly, the most successful countries in technology innovation will be those that do the best job educating our youth.