Like many new companies in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, StumbleUpon’s greatest challenge is finding really smart people to work at its company. As a result, it pushes prospective candidates through a fairly rigorous recruiting process, says Nimish Parmar, a senior software engineer for StumbleUpon.

The first stage begins with a rather common practice of having job candidates undergo a phone interview. It's then followed up with a series of in-person interviews with your prospective boss, colleagues and, then, finally coding challenges. Your code is definitely a key factor as to whether you're hired or not. If you get all the way through the process, chances are you’ll even be interviewed by the CEO, says Parmar. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJSZuxo-os&w=560&h=349] There’s never a dull moment at StumbleUpon, because there's a lot of interesting problems to solve every day, says Parmar. But it's not all nose to the grindstone. There's time to goof off with a ping pong table, pool table, video game station and, ahem, a kegerator. Nimish remained mum on whether his colleagues got drunk at work. But it does kinda make you wonder whether it was an inspiration for the company's name. This fun, yet intense, environment is for people who are smart and laid back, says Nimish, who has become best friends with his coworkers. If you find all of this intriguing, StumbleUpon has a lot of job openings for iPhone developers, web developers, plus front-end and back-end engineers.