Sertifi's Q1 Hackathon Recap

The first quarter has come and gone, which means it’s time to recap Sertifi’s Q1 hackathon! Stephan Nagy, Sertifi’s CTO, has begun hosting hackathons once a quarter for members of the Sertifi infrastructure, operations, and engineering teams to capture the great ideas they have to make our product even better in a fun and productive way.  

The winners of the Q1 hackathon were Jhansi Galma and Morgan Joyce, two QA automation engineers who have worked on the same team for over a year. 

“This is my first hackathon ever,” Jhansi smiled. “At my previous employer, we had never even heard of the concept. So, this being my first experience and getting to win first place, that’s quite exciting. I loved it!”  

THE RULES 

• Team members broke out into teams of 2-5 people. 

• Each team had to pick something they were passionate about within the Sertifi platform to focus on. 
• Each team had to produce a problem statement and formulate an idea that worked towards solving that problem. 
• Teams presented their problem statement and proof of concept to the broader group, then voted for a winner. 

THE HACKATHON

Jhansi and Morgan decided to team up based on the advantage of how closely they work together on a day-to-day basis. They’re already aware of each other’s strengths, used to giving each other feedback, and knowledgeable about what the other person was working on. They described it as being able to “speak each other’s developmental language.” 

“We both have the same knowledge of the platform and what each other works on, so it was an easy choice to work together,” Jhansi explained. 

“The first day was all about gaining momentum and brainstorming,” Morgan illustrated. “During the morning and afternoon of the second day, we were really able to hone in on our project and figure out what we could and could not do in the limited time we had. We would have done some really cool things with our idea if we had more time, but we agreed to stay focused on proving this proof of concept.” 

THE PROOF OF CONCEPT 

Jhansi and Morgan’s focus was to find a way to run automated quality assurance tests in the cloud rather than on a local machine. In about a day’s time, they were able to show proof of concept. 

“Basically, we proved we have the ability to create our tests and deploy them in a cloud,” Morgan explained.  

“We did a lot of testing beforehand. We wanted to iron out all of the wrinkles,” Jhansi added. “Then we were able to demonstrate it by breaking down our idea at a high level and giving a smooth presentation.” 

TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK 

The two also talked about how communication, patience, focus, and teamwork were important factors not only in their win but also to who they are as engineers, employees, and teammates. 

“Being able to have a moment between us where we gave each other feedback, got on the same page, and hyped each other up had a hand in giving us our best shot a winning,” Jhansi agreed. “But that wasn’t the point of doing this. [The hackathon] was about working together and learning something new, which is the best part about this job. There is no shortage of new things to learn here, and having a team that supports you is nice, too.” 

“The whole thing was really cool,” Morgan echoed with pride. “[Our teams] are getting stronger every day, and I think the hackathon was just about living out Sertifi’s values like build together and deliver value. That's what the hackathons are all about for me. Our idea was very valuable, and the fact that ideas are welcome and treated with value from beginning to end makes it much more motivating to work hard on it because it creates value. We create value."