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Key Takeaways LinkedIn has hired three-time world Sudoku champion Thomas Snyder as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster.
Snyder has created more than 10,000 puzzles across his career, and intends for LinkedIn games to be a daily brain warm-up that could lead to fun discussions with colleagues.
LinkedIn views games as part of a “very intentional path” that the platform has taken, Laksh Somasundaram, senior director of product at LinkedIn, told Business Insider.
LinkedIn offers members access to free puzzles as part of a deliberate engagement strategy.
The architect behind LinkedIn’s puzzle push is Thomas Snyder, a three-time world Sudoku champion and longtime creator of logic puzzles, Business Insider recently reported. Before joining LinkedIn full-time in October as its first-ever principal puzzlemaster, he had already authored or edited over 10,000 games across formats, from pen-and-paper magazines to digital platforms.
The 46-year-old now crafts or edits logic games for LinkedIn’s more than one billion members.
LinkedIn debuted games in 2024 and now offers seven puzzles, which users can access daily. Games include Zip, where users draw a single path through a grid to connect numbered dots in order, and Patches, where players fill a grid with rectangles and squares.
The puzzles have quickly become popular; 80% of users who play a game return the following day, according to LinkedIn. Players can tap into a scoreboard to see how quickly they solved a puzzle compared to other players in their network, adding a competitive element.
Snyder’s beginnings
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