Pinterest’s Easter egg lets developers test their hacking skills

Pinterest has revealed a little Easter egg its engineering team has incorporated into the visual search and bookmarking service. For many people, it’s a place to find and share creative ideas, but what about users with technical skills? Well, Pinterest hasn’t forgotten about you: If you do a search for “reactjs,” “nodejs,” “javascript,” or any other keyword pertaining to the company’s web stack, you’ll be able to hack the site.

OK, it’s not really hacking in the truest sense of the word, but you’ll be able to access a game designed to test your developer chops. After you run the search, Pinterest will display a bash terminal which engineers will find familiar, and which you will used to prevent a fictional hacker group from taking down Pinterest. You’ll be presented with clues to solve the problem, and you’ll have to retrieve the “secret bash commands” to discover what the hackers want.

Above: Screenshot of the Hack Pinterest game.

Image Credit: Screenshot

Those who succeed will receive a secret key that enters them in a chance to win a $50 gift card that can be used to purchase any of the 10 million unique products available on Pinterest through buyable pins.

This Easter egg is an interesting and entertaining way to widen the site’s demographic appeal, but it would be remiss to think that this isn’t a recruiting opportunity, something that other companies such as Uber have leveraged. Pinterest is constantly hiring new engineers, so being able to easily assess someone’s credentials while making it engaging is prudent planning. The company can also see if potential recruits have what it takes to beef up the service’s security and protect data for the 150 million monthly active users.

It appears that the “Hack Pinterest” feature is only available on Pinterest’s website and not through the company’s mobile apps.