JLR’s app-solute breaking success

Jaguar Land Rover has hired its first employee through the Gorillaz code-breaking app.

The company teamed up with Gorillaz to create an app that challenged potential employees to solve a series of puzzles to bypass the initial screening process.

Daniel Dunkley, a 23-year-old from Gloucester, UK, has now been named as the first successful code-breaker to join Jaguar Land Rover. Daniel left school at 16 and was working as a controls engineer at a local quarry. His coding and software skills are completely self-taught from an early interest in playing computer games at home with his older brother. He starts work on 2 October as a software engineer at Jaguar Land Rover in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

Gorillaz and Jaguar Land Rover will continue the search for world-class talent at Jaguar Land Rover’s inaugural Tech Fest event, from 8-10 September at London’s Central Saint Martins art, design and technology college. Anyone who can’t make it can complete the coding challenge on the Gorillaz app and go straight to interview.

Daniel said, ‘I’m overwhelmed by how much has happened in the last two months. I read about the coding challenge set by Jaguar Land Rover and Gorillaz on BBC News and decided to have a go. We did the interview by Google Chat then I was invited to Gaydon to talk about my new job. It completely blew me away that I didn’t have to fill out any application forms. I was thrilled when they offered me a job.’

Alex Heslop, head of electrical engineering, Jaguar Land Rover, said, ‘Daniel is exactly the kind of person we need. Technology companies like Jaguar Land Rover provide an exciting opportunity for the brightest and best. We want to attract top-notch talent in software, cyber systems, app development and graphics. We don’t do ordinary and that means hiring extraordinary people. Jaguar Land Rover makes some of the world’s most exciting cars and it needs brilliant people to create them.’

So far, almost 400,000 people have downloaded the Gorillaz app. Of the 41,000 who have taken the challenge, almost 500 cracked the code.