It’s that time of the year again – Facebook has just opened up registration for its annual Hacker Cup, “an annual worldwide programming competition where hackers compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at the title of world champion.”

This is the third Hacker Cup that Facebook has hosted.

“Hacking is core to how we build at Facebook. Whether we’re building a prototype for a major product like Timeline at a Hackathon, creating a smarter search algorithm, or tearing down walls at our new headquarters, we’re always hacking to find better ways to solve problems. In the Hacker Cup, programmers from around the world will be judged on accuracy and speed as they race to solve algorithmic problems to advance through up to five rounds of programming challenges. This is your chance to compete against the world’s best programmers for awesome prizes and the title of World Champion,” says Facebook.

Of course, hackathons are some of the main ways that companies (Facebook included) come up with potential new products and cool new features to said products. Facebook, for one, is pretty proud of its hacker roots.

The registration period will last for a few weeks, followed by some online elimination rounds. The finals are always held on campus in Menlo Park.

Here’s the schedule, according to Facebook:

Facebook Hacker Cup3 days ago

Attention Hackers! The dates have been set for Facebook Hacker Cup 2013. Jan 7 – Jan 27– Registration Jan 25 – Jan 27 — Online Qualification Round Feb 2 — Online Elimination Round 1 Feb 9 — Online Elimination Round 2 Feb 16 — Online Elimination Round 3 March 22 -23 — Onsite Finals at Facebook Registration will open next week – stay tuned! Powered by socialditto  1,000+ likes ·  220 comments

If interested, you can sign up here.