LinkedIn Hires World Sudoku Champion as Its First-Ever Puzzlemaster
LinkedIn has taken an unusual step in its push to boost user engagement — hiring a world Sudoku champion. Thomas Snyder, a three-time world Sudoku champion and creator of over 10,000 puzzles, joined the platform in October as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster. The 46-year-old now designs and edits logic games for LinkedIn’s more than one billion members worldwide.
Snyder began his professional life in science, earning a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard before spending over a decade leading disease detection research. He transitioned to puzzles full-time in 2012, building his own venture, Grandmaster Puzzles, which eventually attracted clients including Netflix and LinkedIn.
A Growing Library of Daily Brain Teasers
LinkedIn launched its games feature in 2024 and currently offers seven daily puzzles. These include Zip, where players draw a single path connecting numbered dots, and Patches, where users fill grids with rectangles and squares. The results have been impressive — 80% of users who play return the following day. A built-in leaderboard adds a competitive edge by letting players compare their solving times with others in their network.
Why LinkedIn Is Betting on Games
According to Laksh Somasundaram, LinkedIn’s senior director of product, games are part of a “very intentional path” for the platform, rooted in the idea that fun strengthens workplace connections. Industry analyst Michael Pachter echoes this view, noting that the sense of achievement from completing a puzzle keeps users coming back. Snyder himself sees the games as a daily mental warm-up that could spark conversations among colleagues — and notably, every puzzle is crafted by a human author.