Ranked #1 in Speed Coding Challenge

In 2021, I took part in the Toptal JavaScript Speed Coding Challenge. The goal? Solve 30 coding challenges in under three minutes. That's right - 180 seconds to:

• Read the problem
• Understand what's being asked
• Think of a working algorithm
• Code it
• Submit the solution

Sounds wild, right? It was.

But what followed was a story of experimentation, automation, reverse engineering, and ultimately, a little help from the cloud.

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🎯 The Rules

• Complete 30 coding puzzles as fast as possible.
• You can make unlimited attempts.
• You get bonus points: +10 for every second left when you submit.

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🔁 First Attempt: Manual Prep

My strategy was simple:

1. Attempt 1: Read and store all the challenges.
2. Solve them calmly offline and keep the answers in a Word doc.
3. Attempt 2: Copy-paste each solution as fast as possible.

It worked. I submitted within 180 seconds.

Result: Decent score, but far from the top. I thought speed = copy-paste accuracy.

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⚙️ Second Attempt: Scripted Copy-Paste

Time to automate the grunt work.

• I wrote a script to auto-fill the answers in the browser.
• Submissions were done in under 20 seconds.

Result: Better score, still not #1. There's a ceiling even with automation.

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🧠 Third Attempt: Reverse Engineering the System

Here's where things got interesting.

While inspecting the app, I noticed:

The browser wasn't sending my code to the server - only the results.

That changed everything.

I built a new approach:

• Use the user token to fetch challenge data.
• Pre-map every challenge to its solution.
• Run each challenge locally using its dynamic parameters.
• Submit just the final output via POST.

Result: Submissions in under 7 seconds. Top 10 in India. But I wasn't done yet.

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📡 Final Breakthrough: Cutting Latency with AWS

One bottleneck remained: network latency.

• The Toptal server was located in the US East zone.
• I was running this from India, which meant 2–3 seconds lost in transit.

Solution: I spun up an EC2 instance in AWS's US East (N. Virginia) region.

• Transferred my script.
• Ran it remotely.
• Results zipped across the network in milliseconds.

Final Result: Submission in under 4 seconds. Ranked #1 in the Indian Region.

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📌 Takeaways

• Tools matter, but so does understanding the system you're working with.
• Automation isn't cheating - it's engineering.
• Latency is real - and sometimes, geography is the final boss.

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📈 Leaderboard

View the official leaderboard →

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Thanks for reading.
Namaskaram 🙏