Hackathon number 1 in Tinkoff.ru
Last weekend, our team participated in the hackathon. I slept off and decided to write about it.
This is the first hackathon in the walls of Tinkoff.ru, but the prizes immediately set the bar high - the new iPhone for all team members.
So, how it was:
On the day of the presentation of the new iPhone, the HR team sent employees an announcement about the event:
First thought - why mentoring? We talked to the HR team that started the hackathon, and everything fell into place.
The rules for participation were simple. Assuming great interest in the first hackathon, our HRs decided that the first 5 teams that submitted the application would be included in the list of participants at once, 2 would choose the jury, and one team would be chosen by more likes in confluence. Each team allowed a maximum of 5 people - regardless of department, project, technology and, most importantly, the city. Therefore, it was very easy to assemble a team and bring colleagues from ten of our development centers. For example, in our team was Timur, a Windows developer from Peter.
We gathered an emergency meeting, made a brainstorm and came up with an idea. They called themselves "T-Mentor", briefly described the essence of the future project and the technology stack (C #, UWP), sent a request. They were terribly afraid of being late, but they turned out to be second and automatically became participants.
If you rewind a little back - we received a letter about the hackathon on September 4, i.e. we had a little more than 3 weeks to work out the details. During this time, we prepared a little bit: we thought through the idea, users, and drew a little design. Our project is a platform where two problems are solved:
The interface helps to schedule regular meetings, make notes for these meetings, prepare the mentor and the ward for personal interaction. We believe that mentoring is first of all personal communication, and the system should not replace regular meetings — it only helps to organize the process. The result was something like this:
The gathering of participants was scheduled for 10:30.
At the time of the Tinkoff hackathon. The cafe became no longer similar to a cafe, but to a real platform for creativity: separate working areas for teams, a relaxation area with blankets and pillows and a table laid in teahouse style.
HR took care of everything: since the hackathon lasts a long time, we were given toothpaste, brushes and a towel, a doctor was on duty at the office, who could be accessed for 24 hours.
Each team was equipped with jobs, provided with additional sockets, water and everything necessary so that we could immerse ourselves in the process with the head. We listened to the organizers, the rules of the hackathon, rang the bell and, with the slogan “For theHorde Tinkoff”, everyone began to plan, divide duties and code.
After solving all the organizational issues, we refueled the pillow and returned to insane coding.
We planned and drew screens, argued about the priority of features that we can skip if we don’t have time.
The day passed very quickly, we, unfortunately, did little. The organizers showed a lot of attention, periodically approached and were interested in our affairs, gave advice.
We raised some API, made a little UI. And then the evening suddenly crept up, and we were completely immersed inpain and despair in the development.
The work was boiling: someone was discussing something, someone was sleeping, we were working. We had 4 UWP developers (we sawed the mobile bank at Tinkoff.ru) and the wonderful Camilla is our technologist. Somewhere between 5 and 6 in themorningIn the morning, when we had already done a few pages and raised ASP.NET WebApi, our backend decided to lie down, but we did not get any more on the sale.
At about 6 o'clock in the morning we were overtaken by the idea that everything was lost. There were no planned screens yet, some kind of pens in the API gave out 500, 400, 404. This spurred to gather the remnants of the will into a fist and start working harder.
In the morning at 8:00, we were stuffed with breakfast and given a little time to finish the projects and prepare the presentation.
Before the start of the hackathon, we thought we’ve drunk everything in 10 hours - we’ll sleep and get the main prize. Friends, it does not work.
Tips (now) experienced :
At 11:00 we started the presentation of our creations. The presentations were cool, but they didn’t have enough time to “touch” the project with their colleagues - all the teams took about an hour to speak.
Another 15-20 minutes the jury consulted, and in the meantime, the organizers told about the audience award. We were offered to vote for the project that I liked the most. One vote from the team for one of the teams (it was impossible to vote for one’s own).
According to the participants, the SkillCloud team won.
The guys wrote down an application in which employees will be able to assign themselves a set of skills, on the basis of the tag cloud. It helps to search for people who understand this or that project, or who are ready to help with this or that technology. It will be useful for new employees who have not yet established contacts and do not know who to contact.
The opinion of the jury and the participants coincided. Therefore, SkillCloud took the main prize, and we were offered to re-vote.
Then we chose Mentor.me.
The idea of the project:
Mentoring service for new employees: a set of activities is created for the position that needs to be performed. There are two types of activities: the study of materials and communication with an expert on the topic. After studying, you need to answer the questions and rate the course / mentor. The mentor and expert also evaluate the newcomer.
After that, the awards ceremony and a photo session took place.
After 24 hours of insane coding, we began to diverge. Although we did not win, we did not feel like losers.
The event itself was very positive and fun. We better know our abilities and weaknesses - something that still needs to be worked on.
They remembered how scary it is to go to a new job and how cool it is to be in a friendly team.
One of the teams even shot a video in which reflected the importance of onboarding and the incidents of the first day. Video can be viewed here .
Personally, I received a positive charge, had a good time. Now I will wait for the next hackathon.
- I love, kiss. Zaphod.
This is the first hackathon in the walls of Tinkoff.ru, but the prizes immediately set the bar high - the new iPhone for all team members.
So, how it was:
On the day of the presentation of the new iPhone, the HR team sent employees an announcement about the event:
First thought - why mentoring? We talked to the HR team that started the hackathon, and everything fell into place.
- Over the past 2 years, our teams have grown a lot, not only in number, but also in geography. Children from 10 cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Sochi, Rostov-on-Don, Izhevsk, Ryazan, Kazan, Novosibirsk) work on different projects.
- It is impossible to ignore the question of onboarding: herds of juna, distributed teams, development of remote offices - everything requires quick decisions.
- We thought it was a chance to tell you how and in what way we solve mentoring problems in a team + a real opportunity to escape from work processes and try something new.
- Hackathon is an opportunity to see colleagues with whom I used to communicate only by phone or slak.
- And yes! It's fun, damn it)
The rules for participation were simple. Assuming great interest in the first hackathon, our HRs decided that the first 5 teams that submitted the application would be included in the list of participants at once, 2 would choose the jury, and one team would be chosen by more likes in confluence. Each team allowed a maximum of 5 people - regardless of department, project, technology and, most importantly, the city. Therefore, it was very easy to assemble a team and bring colleagues from ten of our development centers. For example, in our team was Timur, a Windows developer from Peter.
We gathered an emergency meeting, made a brainstorm and came up with an idea. They called themselves "T-Mentor", briefly described the essence of the future project and the technology stack (C #, UWP), sent a request. They were terribly afraid of being late, but they turned out to be second and automatically became participants.
If you rewind a little back - we received a letter about the hackathon on September 4, i.e. we had a little more than 3 weeks to work out the details. During this time, we prepared a little bit: we thought through the idea, users, and drew a little design. Our project is a platform where two problems are solved:
- Search mentor within the company.
- Assistance in the interaction between the mentor and the ward.
The interface helps to schedule regular meetings, make notes for these meetings, prepare the mentor and the ward for personal interaction. We believe that mentoring is first of all personal communication, and the system should not replace regular meetings — it only helps to organize the process. The result was something like this:
It's day X (09/29/2018)
The gathering of participants was scheduled for 10:30.
At the time of the Tinkoff hackathon. The cafe became no longer similar to a cafe, but to a real platform for creativity: separate working areas for teams, a relaxation area with blankets and pillows and a table laid in teahouse style.
HR took care of everything: since the hackathon lasts a long time, we were given toothpaste, brushes and a towel, a doctor was on duty at the office, who could be accessed for 24 hours.
Each team was equipped with jobs, provided with additional sockets, water and everything necessary so that we could immerse ourselves in the process with the head. We listened to the organizers, the rules of the hackathon, rang the bell and, with the slogan “For the
After solving all the organizational issues, we refueled the pillow and returned to insane coding.
We planned and drew screens, argued about the priority of features that we can skip if we don’t have time.
The day passed very quickly, we, unfortunately, did little. The organizers showed a lot of attention, periodically approached and were interested in our affairs, gave advice.
We raised some API, made a little UI. And then the evening suddenly crept up, and we were completely immersed in
The work was boiling: someone was discussing something, someone was sleeping, we were working. We had 4 UWP developers (we sawed the mobile bank at Tinkoff.ru) and the wonderful Camilla is our technologist. Somewhere between 5 and 6 in the
At about 6 o'clock in the morning we were overtaken by the idea that everything was lost. There were no planned screens yet, some kind of pens in the API gave out 500, 400, 404. This spurred to gather the remnants of the will into a fist and start working harder.
In the morning at 8:00, we were stuffed with breakfast and given a little time to finish the projects and prepare the presentation.
Before the start of the hackathon, we thought we’ve drunk everything in 10 hours - we’ll sleep and get the main prize. Friends, it does not work.
Tips (now) experienced :
- Think over the idea.
- Assign roles.
- Mark the area of responsibility.
- Don't hang out before the competition.
- Get enough sleep.
- Bring comfortable clothes :) and shoes.
At 11:00 we started the presentation of our creations. The presentations were cool, but they didn’t have enough time to “touch” the project with their colleagues - all the teams took about an hour to speak.
Another 15-20 minutes the jury consulted, and in the meantime, the organizers told about the audience award. We were offered to vote for the project that I liked the most. One vote from the team for one of the teams (it was impossible to vote for one’s own).
According to the participants, the SkillCloud team won.
The guys wrote down an application in which employees will be able to assign themselves a set of skills, on the basis of the tag cloud. It helps to search for people who understand this or that project, or who are ready to help with this or that technology. It will be useful for new employees who have not yet established contacts and do not know who to contact.
The opinion of the jury and the participants coincided. Therefore, SkillCloud took the main prize, and we were offered to re-vote.
Then we chose Mentor.me.
The idea of the project:
Mentoring service for new employees: a set of activities is created for the position that needs to be performed. There are two types of activities: the study of materials and communication with an expert on the topic. After studying, you need to answer the questions and rate the course / mentor. The mentor and expert also evaluate the newcomer.
After that, the awards ceremony and a photo session took place.
TOTAL
After 24 hours of insane coding, we began to diverge. Although we did not win, we did not feel like losers.
The event itself was very positive and fun. We better know our abilities and weaknesses - something that still needs to be worked on.
They remembered how scary it is to go to a new job and how cool it is to be in a friendly team.
One of the teams even shot a video in which reflected the importance of onboarding and the incidents of the first day. Video can be viewed here .
Personally, I received a positive charge, had a good time. Now I will wait for the next hackathon.
- I love, kiss. Zaphod.