Hackathon Awesomeness, Career Benefits and Culture with Sashrika Kaur

Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akil and if you're interested in hackathons, the vibe the culture, as well as how it can help you throughout your career. This episode is for you. Joining me today is Sasha car. She's a software engineer at Google, as well as a hackathon coach at Major League hacking. And she recently moved to the UK to London, and dyed her hair red, new country new hair. I love it. I'll put all her socials in the description below. Check her out.

And with that being said, enjoy the episode.

Moving to London, was that kind of your first living abroad experience? Yeah, I it was actually my first living up anywhere outside of my home experience. I was, I was born and brought up in Delhi, and that's I've been, I've stayed there my whole life. So this is the first time that I moved out of my city. And it wasn't just to another city was just to a whole other country. So here's a different experience.

So, how different is London from where you grew up in that experience there in terms of for the city? I think it's pretty much the same that. Yeah, it's the same fast-paced culture that I see there. It's that's about something or the other about activity or the other going around. There is a bitch of bit of a cultural difference for sure with India, and you're not like in the UK and I think there is a people from a lot of diverse backgrounds here that I can find.

So it's just, it's just great to actually meet new people from who have had different experiences and they just talk to them. Yeah, and it's an altogether, different experience adulting a living by your own, your own, in

a new country. So in terms of that London has been great, it has been there to help me out like, my friend is sad that my friends have been there to help me out settle in London and London has been great because I did find a bunch of people to just travel around with and I've been traveling to Europe and UK just to spend some time here. Yeah, that's really cool. You already had friends there

before. Move there. So I was about as you know that I'm part of Major League hacking but that comes a global community of hackers. And so I knew a bunch of people before I arrived here. My best friend from my like my childhood friend shifted to London a year ago. Well you're before me. She pursued her grad post-graduation studies here and she still liked it. I think in a Refinery or something and so she was already here and I could just shift in

and then trouble her from there. So she was like really helpful Belen that brand and then I knew a bunch of other people to communities and stuff and so it was super cool to connect with them. Yeah you can imagine it mean

going to a country and not knowing anyone is is such a hurdle. But if you already have kind of friends there and people that, you know, and familiar with then it's a it's a smaller step. I feel like so huge, but a bit smaller to. It's just I think I'm thankful for those communities that I participated in when I was a student being a part of those communities. Help me Friends around the world.

So it's not like, if even like in any country that I go to, I might be able to find one or two people to those communities, which is great. Yeah, talk to me about Major

League hacking, and how you got involved there, because I'm curious, of course. Yeah. So I was a student in my University and I went to this hackathon where I found this sticker with said, Emily and I had no idea what that was. It was a hack. It was a hacked on bear you. So you hackathons you know, right? So there are a lot of has Like, there's this, there's this Vibe around where you try to find the most exclusive stickers for your laptop as a student.

And so that was the vibe that was going around. Everybody was trying to find the most non-generic sticker which is very special to them. And on that laptop that people can see. And they're like, oh gosh, I do want that sticker for myself and so I wasn't a hunt for those

stickers at all of these events. And so I ride for me and for Major League hacking, what happened is that I got that sticker and the tiger that gave it to me had multiple of them so he didn't really Rather it bother him that I got that sticker. So what happened was? I got around to went home and I actually wanted to find out what is the sticker that I've got. I've no idea what M alleged

means. I have no idea what major league hacking is and so I Googled it and I found out that this is an organization that empowers hot because I've already been involved in a bunch of hackathons by then and so at that point it was just more about. Okay. Yeah, I do want to get involved with this because it looks like a cool dog. And isolation. And at that point, I approached Joe who was going to lead the a bag version of mlh. At that point, it was not active in the APAC region in India.

And so when I reached out to him was like, Hey, I do organized a few hackathons and one organized, one for my community as well and I would love to get some help from you. I know you were there. Do support hackathons student hackathons Etc. And so this would be a great opportunity for me to connect with the, you folks and and everything. And so that point they were like In the plants will do it for expansion, but they haven't really like expanded in that region yet.

And so the answer was like, yeah, we will reach out to you, when, you know, we'll hear more. So it died down for a bit. But then I remember the announced that they were expanding to the region and there was this form up on their page for the coaches program and I just happened to fill out that form gave all the interviews and then gets elected as the first coach for like, one of the first coaches for The APAC region.

So there All four of us who joined together and we went to our first event in Singapore and the one in Nepal after that. And then there was the one in Delhi after that right after right after that, go with it. So everything for hit a pause but we had a good run. During that period we went to three different hackathons and three months which was an incredible appeared for me. Yeah I think from a personal

point of view just the experience of being able to travel. First of all is really cool and then doing what you love. Of through that as well, is just an awesome experience. I was, what I was wondering is so we actually have Innovation days and I don't know how much they differ from traditional hackathons. So, Innovation days, we take a whole day and we play around with new technologies and then the output of that could be a

product that could be a concept. And at the end of the day we present that to the larger group. So we still have that kind of knowledge, sharing aspect of it is that similar or like comparable to a hackathon or what is in essence, what What makes a hackathon, a hackathon, of course. So with hackathons, it's actually it's there are knowledge. Sharing sessions. There are workshops and there are, you know, some sessions where you can pair program and

stuff. Yeah. But I think it's much more than that. So basically, in hackathons what happens is that you go to hackathon, you can go pull solo, you can form a team there. You can just go together with your friends or something. And then the, at the end of the event, the goal is to just build something and New skills. Every person has their own golden in their mind. It could be learning a new skill

that we can. It can be building a project that they wanted to work on. It can be building their own portfolio that they are procrastinating. So everyone has their own goal in mind with the hackathon. And most of the people have already some set idea of what the hackathon would look like. If not, we are totally welcome,

big nurse. So if you come in and you have no idea what a hackathon is an order, an event like that is just come up and then talk to someone and they'll help you out and help you figure that out what it means for you. So basically you during the course of this event, whether it's 24 hours, 36 hours or 48 Hours, your goal is to actually be very particular about your personal goals if I put it that

way. So basically, if you're building a project that we can, let's say, and I want to build a health app that helps out folks. My goal in that 48 hours to make like build as close of a perfect health app as I have in my mind. It won't ever reach the perfect round. Honestly, it would be far for perfect at the end of those 48 hours but it would be so fulfilling because I learned Something new. And I'm closer to my goal than I

was before. And what I did eventually was I had to build in projects for my portfolio and I had also had to build in projects for some of the hacks that I had to do in my University. And so basically that went just going around hackathon after hackathon building, that same project and reiterating and building it over and over again over the course of a few weekends.

So that I don't have to spend some extra time out of my course work during the weekdays and this could be just a weekend thing and so it keeps Keeps me accountable.

So as I said, it's different for everyone, but it generally means learning new skills, focusing on having fun, making new friends, networking developing that projects Etc, and it still works for me. Even in today's, I mean today, when I'm working as a professional, I still love going to hackathons just to meet people from that Network, find mentors. Just talk to people in general and then find like see where the current industry Trends are

going. How about hackers and building projects and so it's super fun to be there. And so I think hackathon supports you in each stages of your life. It's not just something that you do as a student, it goes away beyond that. And so it just continues from there.

Interesting. Like I whenever you talk about that, I feel a burning passion about hackathons but just give full transparency. Like, Innovation days, are my only experience with something comparable to hackathons.

You haven't been to a hackathon outside of my company, but whenever I talk to people about, Hackathons they're super enthusiastic, maybe it was because of the people I talked to but no one talks bad about hackathons like it's an amazing concept where people come together, they learn things, they built things, either together or by themselves and at the end of the day, yeah, it is fulfillment that happens. I just don't know why it is hackathons. Like, what about that environment?

Makes it so that people love going to that and the experience is just the experience that they have. I don't know why it's hackathons and not something else or why, why they can't find it within their own. Organization for example. Definitely. Yeah, I think it comes more to the fact that hackathon culture is, it's getting popular nowadays, but before, like, even in my region, it wasn't as popular. For example, it comes out with different issues.

Some our Logistics. I'm our cultural differences. Some are just plain old like, yeah, we don't have the resources to support that environment. Like, for example, at my University, they were logistically shoes. You couldn't really have students to overnight, because there would be a professor that needs to stay with you. And the professors were not did not want you to. Yeah. So they look like they were different problems.

That could arise from that particular node, but you can always found a workaround that so there are had days that you can use. For example, you talked about Innovation days, that's a similar to a hacked a concept. You can have like seven or eight hours print, instead of a 24-hour thing and I could work just as fine. It's just that notion that Adrenaline Rush of organizing and working or like participating in a hackathon. But give you that idea. Okay?

Yeah this is how everybody is working on different projects. This is how I mean the two students working on the same thing. You'd never know they're working style unless you work with them. And so hackathons, give you like a pseudo working environment where you're working with a team, are you working on a project and then it gives you an idea on how it would be like if you're working in an organization with the team to actually work on a project in

the gold? And so some of the principles that I saw in A hackathon or worked. And I worked with a team. I found in a hackathon at the same principles that I applied to my working policy here in the day. Sometimes, when I'm stuck at a bug, I do make a sprint out of it and just for the hell of it. I just hung there for a few hours, sitting with my task, and then I try to complete it. I also try and seek help the same way that I did during the hackathon.

So all of those skills are something that I developed over time, but just going to these hackathons, I have been to a few I participated in a few hackathons. I've been to a some hackathons, I've mentored a few hackathons.

I think the score is reached over 50 or 55 by now, but I've been so much involved in this community that it just makes sense for me to that it. I understand how its evolved from not being there in the community to a point where it's so common that it's just a culture in all universities and so even with I think organizations, as you said it is not that common that they organize hackathons.

I think that Comes from and it is still understanding an additional lead on how hackathons would support employees as well. As suppose, the company, big companies, like Google Microsoft and other companies as well, they all support the hackathon culture. And the reason they do is that they know when they give employees open creative space just to work on their own ideas. Yeah. Some brilliant and Amazing Ideas would come out of these hackathons.

I heard I think if I'm not wrong paytm if I'm not mistaken, was another project that came out. Well hackathon, I might be wrong. So don't quote me on that but I do have to like Google it confirmed, my facts here but I heard that these are different companies that came out of a hackathon project so they're always success stories. They're so with organizations. Also they've they have learned to adapt to the fact that these hackathons are a creative space where employees can drink freely.

They're not bounded by their own project or the scope of their own industry. Yeah, it's just mostly, yeah, I'm gonna work on this creative idea because I'm passionate about that and I know about that. So I'm just going to expand to that space and then go from there. Exactly.

I mean I recognize the trend that you're saying that companies are more and more supportive of it right. Either facilitating or sponsoring or organizing themselves internally or even broader to other communities such as trends of I've seen as well. And I like that you say that the skills you've kind of cultivated through participating in hackathons. They translate to the real work environment, right?

Figuring out how to deal with bugs or asking for help when you need to. I wouldn't expect that culture to also be there in hackathons. Like, it makes sense when you say it, but I feel like everyone goes, their kind of with their own goal in mind and therefore, our focus on their own goals.

But I'm glad to hear that. It is an open community, that is willing to help each other because obviously, when you get stuck, sometimes you just need help or a mirror to bounce off of. Yeah, and it's so great to see you. Because that you. So, any problem that you're facing in a hackathon, somebody else has faced a similar problem before. It's not something that you're alone working on your own issues, it's not like that. You working on bugs, which other

people have fake. So if you post a message in the community chat or just reach out to someone and talk to them and or just ask a mentor who's there to support you, they would be willing to help out because they understand the that Innovation comes from a point where the culture is occlusive, where you feel that you can work on things without being being stuck on a problem for too long or getting disheartened along the way.

And so, it just comes from that I can imagine I was wondering as well because I am now in a project where I'm for the first

time I've been involved since the start and that has never happened to me before. Like I've been solved. I've been a developer for like 5 to 6 years. It's the first time where I'm at the start. We're making all the decisions were building stuff from scratch throwing things away because they don't work building things

again and iterating like that. And I feel like throughout your career, there's not going to be The moments and that you truly seek them out that you're going to build something from scratch, right? You're going to go into an organization stuff. Is already existing in.

You have to build features on top of that to add value but truly starting from scratch, I don't, I don't know if everyone gets to experience that which made me think that if you go into a hackathon and you start building a personal project, personal projects are usually where you do start from zero and you go all the way to 1 so that might add to the experience as well where everyone is trying to do something from scratch. Get up. And running as fast as possible.

And that is the environment that you learned, then the most as well. Which not a lot of people get to experience. I feel like that's true. And I think when you are actually working on an environment where you're working on your own personal thing, you have your own personal motivation, to build something that basically a problem that and a solution a solution that

solves your particular problem. Something that you're facing and so your passion comes from there, you have a motivation to get it complete, you have a motivation to get it done. Then during that, We can but you also have a motivation to learn. So if you're working like let's say I want to learn a new

technology. I have never worked with Android apps before and so this weekend, I do want to make sure that I've built an Android app myself and at the end of the day, if you're building some sort of version of an Android app, you'd call it successful. There are a lot of people who are hyping you up during a hackathon.

I mean, during mlh hackathons are a lot of people for sure who I pick you up, and we'll cheering for you and making sure that you understand that you're here to enjoy, have fun in understand that the learning process is a process. And so this isn't the end of the world where you can't finish or complete an AB, during the end of the hackathon, what we want to make sure is that your progress and so that progress is what you want to associate your learning with your fun with.

And so that's how you know, hackathons teach me to. Look at things. Yeah just think I think it's interesting that you point out that in personal projects you solve your own problems. Like your goals, are your own and you are there to solve them while in an organization. Usually, you're solving user problems, whether they're internal or external. And sure you get fulfillment through that because you're adding value right into someone else's life. But there's not many instances

where you do that to yourself. I think that's I've never actually realized that that from personal projects just solving your own stuff or if you're building your own company, but not a lot of people do so that's I think that's a very interesting tidbit there when it comes to the duration of a

hackathon. Like I mean our Innovation days are eight hours, we take a full day and usually, sometimes at the end I'm like, okay, I would I'd love to progress with this, but it's going to be in my personal time and then I don't have my team because usually we group up in people or in teams because I don't get to work with a lot of colleagues on a day-to-day. So we do try and mix and match in that way. But sometimes, it leaves me kind of unfulfilled that one day, like, what is kind of the

perfect duration of a hackathon that you've seen? Because there's a lot of variance where people go all out and take a full week or something in between as well. Yeah. So I think with organizations and Big, they generally prefer a week-long hackathons. And I understand the reason for that, it's that you're doing your day-to-day work and this is something that you ain't doing after that. And so people need more time to actually adapt to that environment.

But there are certain points where, in the organization also gives like their employees days off. Like, there is a 2d or 3D hackathon and you have days off that you don't have to work on your project during that time. If you participate in the hackathon and you slowly working on the project. So it also depends on the or goals on how they want to structure it.

But student hackathons in particular, I've seen that Sprint is how we actually do it. So we don't want to do like long hackathons and where it's going week after week, you want to do something like a 24-hour or 36-hour hackathon, which is perfect because it's a limited size of this print. People start working at a certain are and then they end at

a certain. Are we also encourage hackers to just get some sleep and get some rest because it's a long journey and they don't want to Tire themselves out but generally they don't sleep, when it's like a whole 24 hours. It's been for them. So I know for a fact I never slept so I understand where they're coming from. And so 24 hours is generally, I think a sweet spot where I've seen most hackathons work with that format. But some hackathons do go up to 36 hours and then gave hackers a

space to just sleep and rest. Relax, at that point. Yeah. Because when you said like 48 hours, I was like. Is that across multiple days? I hope so. Like, five up, I could be five days. I feel like if you get, 48, are hackathons it. It's actually straight up two days but yeah, we definitely cover. So they do sleep at that point for 24 hours. We encourage them to sleep, but they don't sleep.

Now, I mean, you you touched upon the skills that you kind of cultivated throughout hackathons and that translates your career as well. I'm wondering what participating in hackathons and being more involved, in those communities have done for your career in progression, as well. Can you share a little bit about that? Of course. Yeah, I think a lot of these are Unity is that I have in my gut, your journey, I got them from

hackathons. So I think the first opportunity that I got from a hackathon was back when I was in Singapore and I got a chance to interact with bunch of folks from there the network grew because now if I am looking for some certain opportunities like whether it's a it's going to a new hackathon or maybe talking about something, you know just finding some a platform to talk or share My Views upon.

Yeah. That Network actually grows and gives me the opportunities people reach out to me, directly to say that. Hey, this is something that we would love for you to share your opinion on. And that is, that is awesome. There's something that I would love to do. I would love to give back to the community, that helped me grow. And so, the hackathons have helped me stay in touch with that community that way?

Yeah, the other thing that they have done is actually helped me develop my skills and practice my debugging skills year after year, when I go to these hackathons month after month, when I am at a different event, I try to help out hackers and so Debugging skills, get stronger and stronger, by the time I'm looking at it go. Now, I've never worked with certain Technologies before, but I do know how to debug those Technologies. The reason being I worked with

hackers who are learning that technology is the same way that I am that pert. They're very new to it. I'm very new to it. If I haven't worked with it before. And so it just develops that sense of debugging skills that you are. That you can translate to your workplace environment. Now, if in Google, I'm working on a technology that I'm absolutely unfamiliar with. Then those kids coming through coming to picture because now I can actually figure out on my own. Okay?

This is how I can progress. This is how I can like this is where I exactly I need help and more context to solve that bug and so all of those come into picture.

So yeah, I would say that there are different opportunities that came in after I started participating hackathons, whether it was speaking opportunities, whether it was conferences or whether it was just plain old simple Network where you can meet people and talk to them were like-minded who have The same vision is you and then connect with them over, you know, a coffee or a lunch, perhaps, and then take the conversation from that. I found so many mentors from

just being at a hackathon. I mean, I so, with mentors and sponsors. The thing is that I am I'm a huge advocate for finding a mentor in your early stages of your career, the reason being that they would, they would not just give you advice. They would also support your career and ways that, okay, they would give you a personalized advice, they would give Be personalized feedback on how to improve and they would also make sure that you have the right

tools to succeed in your career. And so all of these hackathons work great way for me to connect to those folks who are like-minded, who are in the same industry as I was, and who had similar ideas as I had. And so, it just became easier from there because I could connect to them on a personal level and then I could just seek out seek them out.

If I am stuck somewhere, if I'm facing a huge problem, perhaps, and so I think It gives you a hug, don't give you a lot of opportunity to do that to do that for yourself to build your own personal skills, to find your own tribe. If I may lick put it that way and to just you know, develop your skills in a way that it supports your career for the long run rather than the short haul itself. Yeah, I can imagine, I think it's interesting you point out

that the more you help people, the more you read code. So you also get better at reading code, basically, which also involves debugging that same code. Even though you might not be familiar in and actually writing that code still reading is the separate skill. I feel like which obviously is Jason. Yeah, yeah. And I think this is something that a lot of hackers in the community do, if you are at a

hackathon. It's so there might be like a competitive Spirit between teams that do want to win. At the end of the axon, there are a lot of team members and experience hackers who know that that particular comparatives can competitiveness doesn't come from the fact that they want to

win. Haha. Done. But they want to focus on is just holding their own skills and the way that they do that is working on their own project and but on the side helping out another team with their project if they can. And so that just helps them develop their skills and it's so it's a win for everyone at the end of the hackathon, because the experience hacker got to just make sure that he is in touch with some of these skills that he hasn't touched

previously. He has worked on, Project is on Project as well. And so at the end of the hackathon is just to help the community that has Actually worked, it works. It worked. Its way to the end by helping each other out and working on their own skills that they want to do in the first place. Yeah, I mean, I like that competitiveness.

We know work. Environment is usually not like a sense. I feel from others. Like we're are usually in this together to make it happen and we're not competing with anyone else not even amongst each other. It's just, there's enough for everyone to go around. Basically, yes. And then in hackathon environment, I do feel like the environment obviously if there's like a prize. Or that's what our competitiveness gets out. But then still, you're competing to create the most value.

I feel like in the shortest amount of time to do the coolest Innovative Thing versus another team in that way. So that's then I think that might be one of the few competitive aspects that you can have in developing software. Of course, yes. What do I bring software? It is always common. That you understand that there is a collaborative culture in place even in your workplace. There would be a collaborative culture and So hackathons even

there are teams involved. They teach you how to actually collaborate on projects together. Whether it's thinking about projects through kid, have very basic you working on a virtual environment, not everybody is in the same space so you need to come up with ideas on how to sink on the project or whether it is just helping out. Another teammate, another hacker who's sitting up beside you but it's in a different team but it's all stuck on a problem so

you don't want that. And so what do you do? Is generally make sure that you help them out but at the same I'm you are there for your team developing all sorts of methods that can help you think and work on the project together. And so just help to develop a bunch of skills, a bunch of interpersonal skills as well. For example, it builds up, you

know, how to work. Collaboratively, how to build, you know, a team structure, how to pick up the right tools, so that your team is set up for success, and they don't have to worry about collaboration or syncing up or finding ulcers when they are working on a project. And so there aren't You blockers for you during that weekend because you are there for a short period of five minutes. So you want to make sure that you made most of your time.

Yeah, I mean, in in a fast-paced environment, whether it's an organization or a hackathon with people that are really passionate and enthusiastic, I can imagine that for some people that can also feel daunting where they already have their their own insecurities like, they feel like they might not belong or they're not good enough.

Like do hackathons, pay specific attention to those people as well because obviously if you have those feelings and you come into that environment that Just like multiply whatever you're feeding in that way which is a sad side effect. I feel like of course yeah and I think I am a good example of the

person. You just described I myself during my first hackathon, I was really hesitant to go there and participate just because I was sure that my skills weren't at par that I couldn't really contribute meaningfully to a team which would then ensure that they win the hackathon because they were there to do that. And so I was Ali hesitant. But the friend of mine actually told me that hackathons are much more about just winning or completing a project. The way that you sculpt it out,

it's about learning. It's about networking. It's about just just having fun come with us over for one weekend. We participate in a hackathon every weekend and so it won't matter if we lose this one. So, just take that pressure off. Come with us and we would just work together on a project. That's that's a simple as that. And so I did like go to that hackathon. I did eventually build a project.

I did. But I tried my level best to actually work on something and create something by the end of the week weekend. And so I realized it's much more than that during a hackathon. It's a whole sort of Celebration, we went there, we built a project. We started building a project, we worked with different teams who were there because they were building on something similar. And so we just exchanged ideas work done. The same technology. Try to debug together during

night time. They like everybody was talking Tired and so they wanted a break. And so somebody pulled out the guitar and they were like jamming to songs and everyone was like they're in the community. So it's it's super fun. Just it's relaxing as well and other taste same time, you work even skills. It's so fun like that with hackathons and general. I think there is a lot of support that companies who are sponsoring those hackathons

provide for beginners. There's great documentation for you to get started with companies even send their representatives. And if you're working at, if you are at an average hackathon, a coach would be there to support you. Problems, the things that I do, basically, they are there to help you out. Get started, get settled easy. And if you are facing issues, you can always reach out to a coach at an advantage hackathon.

The organizers are there to ensure that they understand that there are a lot of beginners, who would be attending the event for the first time who have no idea what a hackathon is and who have never been to a similar event before. And so it's their responsibility. Our job to just put together, some tools are a kid basically that can help them. Settle in and get started. And then be there personally to provide personalized feedback and just provide personal help as they go.

And so, during these events, it is quite common to see the lot of beginners are there at the event who pair up with either experienced hackers on the day of the event in the team-building session or they're just a group of the universe who want to work together on a project. So they have like an idea in mind but they don't know the technology the best. And so what you can do is just show up at this event And former team whichever team that you want to formed. It's not really necessary to

have experienced hackers. But yeah, it would be definitely beneficial because you could learn from them. And so former team for yourself and then you'd be able to see that there are certain sources that are active that we can. For example, there are certain sponsors that after active of brought their documentation, there are certain tools that are act that there is the organizing team has set up for you so that you can get asked. Get started and start building

something. There are mentors in place who can help you out with a certain piece of technology if you're stuck there are there. Also judges who come in during the course of the hackathon just to chat up with hackers and see what the vibe is and if they're stressed just calm them down a bit. And so there are all sorts of different ways that organizers support hackers with these events. They would make sure that it's

accessible to everyone. And so for beginners, especially do some Like something stupid and sure that these are some of the examples, another thing that I've seen organizers do, which is absolutely incredible is have a best beginner price. So if you're a beginner Advocate on, they support a best beginner hack price, you can participate in opt-in for that price they'll check your project and then whichever like amongst the

beginner hackers. If you have the best project, then you also win a prize in mlh hackathons just by participating in a hackathon and demoing your hack. You get it to show off with the person list item with sticker, for that particular event, which is I, which I feel is absolutely incredible because it gives, as I said, hackathons are away to collect exclusive stickers and so that was my way of collecting exclusive stickers as well. A lot of I do a lot of these

hacks. I know another coach friend of mine who actually collects these stickers and they have like, a whole wall of. I demoed stickers now, which is super incredible to see ya. Whoa! I mean I like that you put emphasis on.

It's not about what you put. Out. Right? It's not about what you actually do but it's more so about the byproducts that come through out, exercising, whatever you want to do there. I whether that's collaborating with people whether that's sharing knowledge or gaining knowledge, on a thing that you didn't know before and even with the prize pools involved like those are all added benefits to that whole experience.

I feel like so it's not necessarily about your output but more so the outcomes that go of participating in such an event and being amongst people that also are there for the same experience. Interesting in in joining

hackathons and going to hackathons like I feel like organizations more and more are going to organize hackathons themselves. What would you say distinguishes? Like a good hackathon or a great hackathon from ones that are not as great. Like is there a specific thing that you can point out? Like there's a lacking guidance or coaches?

Or what would that be? I think as long as you're thinking from a perspective of hackers first the something that we follow in Major League hacking as well, if you Hackers first while making most of your decisions, just to ensure that they are having a good experience at the event, you are hackathon is sure to be a success.

There are, of course different aspects while organizing have downwards, whether it's from a logistical point of view, if it's a student hackathon, then you also have to think about sponsorship getting raising funds to actually support that hackathon getting the right permissions, Etc. If it's a car packet on, then you want to have to think about different things, whether it's finding the right space giving the like that. Form etcetera, Etc.

And so all of this, those are logistical issues that you can work out with a good team. So it comes down to these two things, making your decisions hackers first, and then forming a good team, which can support, which are passionate about hackathons and which to want to contribute meaningfully, I have seen hackathons, right? I've actually seen a hackathon being run by like a limited number of people limited number of resources and being the best hackathon that I've been to.

I've also seen hackathons which have like a huge organizing team and A You'd set of resources, but they still couldn't pull off a great hackathon, and a good hacker experience. Altogether reason being that they were blocked on certain aspects that they didn't think through. So, I always come down to this particular code, which helps me think about hackathons and it is definitely helpful as a coach, as well as an organizer. For me.

Is that anything that you think can go wrong in a hackathon, will definitely go around. So as you would from before, and so from there, what you want to do is just roll back and Okay, how can I avoid that situation? Yeah, so the better that you can think it through the better, you'd be able to mitigate the situations and would be prepared for the for it, as well as coaches and Major League hacking. We are trained to handle that stuff.

We focus solely on making sure. That if a problem arises a hackathon, we are there to Medicated and help resolve these those issues. And so, that is our job as a coach. When we go to these hackathons just to make sure that there are entire hackathon a seamless, there's no experience hackers And the way that we measure success for a hackathon is that if there is a problem that are like this is just one way that we measure success.

But if there is a problem that arises and hackathon and the hackers had no idea at the end of the event that there was this problem. Then we would say that yes we did a good job because we were able to mitigate the issue before it created, sort of like a big issue at that point and so there would always be issues at the hackathon. Is what you want to understand. There would be a fact on which is absolutely perfect but it's just how well prepared you are.

That you can mitigate. It Foster is What the hackathon perspective is all about. And so, yeah, I think that's what I would leave you with. So if you can think of making decisions hackers first, and then you can think of just making sure that you have certain, you know, Tools in place to actually mitigate those issues when they arise.

There would be new issues that arise often and then but you should be prepared for most of it than it would give you, you know, a lot of space to handle those. The other thing that are we generally make sure hack What is to have like, think ahead and have buffer time as well? If you are on a tight schedule, just make sure that you have a good buffer as well because things generally overrun and I are not on time and so in that case, it would just cause issues

for you. If you are keeping everything on a tight pack schedule because it wouldn't really work out that way. So yeah, I mean, I think these are the three tips that definitely helped a lot of organizers and hat making their hackathons success. Whether it's their first hackathon that they're organizing or it's their 10th, it definitely works for For all folks across. Yeah. I feel like it's it's more so General organizing events

advice, right? Like whether you're organising a conference or a Meetup or specifically a hackathon, then figuring out what can go wrong in accommodating for that and giving yourself leeway and buffer time because things will go wrong. I think that's, that's great advice all around in that way. I've, I've noticed when you talk

about, like, in my head, their software engineers and developers, you call them specifically hackers. Like, is that a term that you use on purpose? Because they're not really packing? Computer. I feel like the creating whatever they want to create. So you were right. I mostly L hackathon. You would find software engineers and developers, but there are also ux designers product managers project managers just like folks who want to figure out which field they want to go in, so they

don't really have a title. And so, for all of those folks, it's very, very sad if I just call them developers because even though they are developers but they are working, they would prefer a different term they would prefer. Fine to be called designers, they would prefer to be called project managers because that's how they associate with. That's what their role is at the hackathon.

And so, at a project, it's essentially like I do, I get this question of many, many times that, hey, I'm a ux designer. What do I want? What can I do at a hackathon? It's for student developers. It's not. You are there as well to hone your skills. As a ux design of course a project would need a ux designer, right?

If you want if you can assist them in making more if you can assist them in making a presentation, giving a good demo with the Manager, you can help them like make a good face in the presentation in the demo phase. You can make sure that everything stays connected. The team is well st. And all of that comes into picture, so it's not just building a technical skill at

hackathon. You're also building, whatever skill that you want to build during that particular piece of project and so coin, them hackers is just our way to make sure that a and during at a hackathon, all of you are there to work on your particular goal, as well as the team's goal that you have defined for yourself at the same. Time you were there to ensure that at the end of this, you have a good experience. And so hackers is just a general term that we use to during the hackathon.

So just use that as a generic term to incorporate everyone under that umbrella, because then it just wouldn't be fair if we call them to had a student who had a yeah. No it makes sense to me. I didn't know that other facets of like a product team were also involved in the in the skills obviously, but also in the roles, I Like, so, that's

interesting. It makes sense though, because if you're building a product, then those facets that you would find in an organization, you would also find then in a hackathon because if not, then yeah, those facets are going to be lacking which is also going to translate in the end result of whatever you're building, interesting. And you're mimicking like a team, like an organization's team. And so, as close as you can get to that would give you the real world experience.

So that's I think it's a good way to think about things and Work through things. Yeah, one of my most recent

thoughts is an interesting notion on team size because I feel like I've lately been working a big team and a big team has big team problems, which means a lot of people are in that team. They want to be involved, have discussions and those discussions then, can sometimes be endless like that, especially if the meetings unclear or something like that. And I've also worked in smaller teams where all of a sudden were aligned way faster.

We add value in a faster way yet the Ocean of having a big team that solves problems. Faster is like all around in organizations are we're not delivering fast enough. Maybe we should throw a bunch of people together and make an even bigger team. So then again, faster like what have you seen stuff like that with the rest of Team size and hackathons as well? Like are there guidelines with regards to the size that you have as well?

So generally there is an average team of four that the hacker that the hackathons have like some room for all the reason being with Two large teams. As you said, it's big organization problems. It's just endless discussions, and then no one would get like a scope. Defined work done, you rather. It would be easier if you define the scope, even with larger teams. In an organization, forming sub-teams is a common culture.

The reason being that every sub team is working on it for project and mostly those teams are four, five or six. Folks with hackathons there are on an average thumb. Rule is just to have like four members, you can go solo, you can go up to 4. There are some hackathons that allow Up to six members in the team as well.

But I think that's the bottleneck Point anything beyond that and you will be able to provide meaningfully to the gold and so it eventually would turn into like the school assignment project that you worked on where there are some students who are doing all the work and then there are some students who are not doing any work. Yes. And then there's this interpersonal issues happening at that point. Yeah, like that.

I mean you mentioned a bunch of times your hackathon coach but I have no clue. I mean I have an idea of what that Means now just within with this conversation, I have no clue if I wanted to be one how to be one, like to go to a course or like, do you do you helped organize hackathon events? Like how do you become a coach? Yeah, so I think the to become an invalid code, of course, you have to go through a series of interviews, but in rock, to get

to those interviews. Just have some sort of experience with hackathons. If you're an active hacker in the community, if you're already helping out hackers, the way that I just described, then it's easier to just apply and be a coach, because that's what we do, we help. Hackers, we help out organizers. We have about sponsors and like anybody who's associated with the hackathon, our job is to make sure that it's a good experience for them.

And so if you're already doing that as active hacker in the community, it's easier for you to transition to that role, because it's the same thing that we're doing. It's just that we're doing with the, not it with an organization and you you're doing voluntarily. If you already do it, voluntarily that means that you already have a passion for it. And so that's easier for you for us to just ensure that. Okay. Yeah, these skills are transferable.

You already have A passion for it and we would love to, you know, interview you for the role. See if you're a good fit and then like on board you to our journey. And so that's I think the way that I put it in terms of like the logistical point the interviews Etc. There are three interviews that I took to be a coach one was with my manager, one was with my managers manager and then what goes with the CEO of the

company. And so both the all of those three interviews had different formats, but most of them really resolved around My passion for hypothalamus be how I mitigate problems or, you know, handle some unknown issues if they come up to me. Yeah and see like my experiences. What led me what personal experience have led me to this point where I am interviewing for a coach's role? Yeah, interesting.

I like that you can already like, how do you say that gain experience in that role or have the role without having the role? Let's say, yes. And then I Really get the role in a more formal way. But the formal part doesn't really matter. If you love what you're doing, anyway, the formality of it doesn't really matter at the end of the day, of course, one of

the latter things I was thinking is like a hackathon for me. Sounds like a start-up culture, right? You're trying to build something from 0, to 1 get it live as fast as possible. You're probably because you're in such a small team, you're responsible for a lot of facets and you have to think about more. So the big picture of things which I feel like translates

more to a start-up culture. But if I'm looking at your career history, the companies you've been involved in our more, so, bigger companies, I mean, it's Google Now, it's been Microsoft in the past, like, why is that, or can you find that same culture within those companies as well? Yes, so basically, you're right, any of these hackathon project that you've seen you building something from scratch and so

it's more of a start-up culture. Yeah, I think working with in my professional life, I do like to work with big Tech because it provides more structure for me and I feel Feel like, like there are people who do well or work. Well, when it's a start-up culture there. People who just contribute more meaningful, if they like, are thrown into a problem head-on and then they can just figure their way out from there.

Yeah, for me, I feel like during the initial years of my career, I really wanted to have a structured environment where I am not to run into problems. I have the space and time to learn those skills gather that knowledge and then solve those problems. Myself with the startup culture. I think there is built faster, fail fast. And then move on to the next bit and then try something else and try something else. Yeah. That like that's generally the start of culture.

And a lot of startups that I have that, I have seen with big Tech, or with bigger organizations. It's much more different. That it's much more about doing the right thing rather than building faster. And fading faster, we don't want to fade faster. We want to do the right thing from the beginning and then build a product with yeah. Yeah. But in order to get that Scott startup culture within big Tech,

it's again the same thing. There are bigger teams, And big Tech that, you know, have huge projects and like large teams and then you have like, you get lost into the entire bit of it all. But then there are teams within this big Tech which are which have like a smaller sub team as well as I said before. It's wanna sub team, a big project, but a smaller sub team, six or seven people handling that one project so which is essentially comes down to the

team culture itself. So in big Tech, it's not that all teams have the same culture across org, it's Morty. Dependent on how your particular team function functions.

For example, my team and Microsoft were was like a huge team and so it worked on Commerce financial services and internal tools for Microsoft and so they had a different working environment and culture as compared to my team right now here in Google, which is the played a monetization team, and our job is to make sure that it is good for the app developers to monetize through that, my want is their apps to our features on console and so we build those features.

And so, Our job is to make sure that our core product stays like compliant and we aren't using features that are helpful for developers. And so we scoped out our problems in a way that we actually work in a fast-paced environment. Yeah. Now it again, depends on team to team. If you there are teams in Google that work on a Sprint, Sprint races, that our teams at Google that work on a nearly gold

basis. There are teams which work on like a quarterly basis, their quarterly goals and they have check-ins like that, but it all again, depends down. Comes down to the team. You're still with hackathons getting that culture of, you know, working through a spent over a period of weekend and then working through your boat

it just is the similar way. But then your team decide your team culture decides how it's going to look like, whether it's gonna be something like a start-up or whether it's going to be a lot of bureaucratic make decisions getting the right thing first and then but if something later yeah I mean then you have kind of the best of both, right? Because there are personal preferences involved in there.

You already said like you like your environment to be more stable probably because you you experience the startup culture so much with the hackathons that you're like. Okay maybe my my more so day-to-day should be a bit more stable. Yeah. I don't want fires to put out fires during the day to do work. Yeah, I can imagine. So I like that big Tech all first. Like the best of both in there as well. I think if it would only offer one side then it wouldn't be as successful as it would be

otherwise correct. Yeah, one of the last thoughts I

had is how do you balance? Once what you're doing on a day-to-day, as well as being involved with this passion that you have for hackathons because I feel like a lot of people want to be involved in certain communities whether they're meetups or conferences or stuff like that, but they feel like it's all going to be extra time or own time or anything like that. How do you find a balance in there? Yeah. So I think if you so it's just like something like do you like

cooking or do you like? Yeah, okay so that's like I don't have enough time for all. All the homies. I have loved it. So when like, when you say that, you like, cooking, that means that during the course of the weekend, if you find like an interesting recipe, you would love to, you know, take time out of your schedule and then try to just cook that restrict Edition, cook that recipe, and then try

something for yourself. And so it's just like I think that a hobby at this point, if I have a weakened and I have availability that we can, I just try and incorporate a hackathon during that weekend with major league hackings easier for me, that Don't have to find hackathons myself behind it for me and I just have to show up and be my best self. But yeah. I just put it like that. So I put in like I let my manager know that hey, this is my availability during that weekend.

And so like job with Google and my day-to-day job is from Monday to Friday, that's the time that I'm actually making sure that I am giving 100% to my organization with big Tech again. One thing I love, it's flexible. So I it's not like a working are sort of situation where I have to be up at 9 a.m. and I have to close down at 6 p.m. and I have to get everything done during that period of time.

I can start my day very well at an 11 a.m. and then finish off really late at 8 p.m. it all depends upon my project. If I project needs me out there to help it out. If I'm already done with my work, then it's okay, that's completely fine. And during the weekends, it's a, so the one thing that is very, very common across big Tech is that during weekends? You're not supposed to work, you're not Really on the it gives you time to relax and

unwind and do your own thing. And so I use this time to work at hackathons and support hackathons and make sure that I am there at one event or the other, if I have some time. So if I'm not traveling that vegan or if I don't have to adult that weekend, something I go to the hackathon and find my time there. So it's just I think it comes down to just finding time just to manage stuff for yourself. Yeah. People find time for hobbies, I do find time for Hackathons is just like that.

And if someone asks me, what my hobby is, I honestly have no answer because I spent my time like this and so it just doesn't leave me much scope to figure out what a hobby is for me. And so, it just comes down to that. And I think when it comes, when we talk about managing time, it just comes down to the fact that you can compartmentalize the

bunch of stuff for you. Whether it is working on your own skills because I don't want to overburden myself by just going to hackathons and helping others. I do want to spend some time developing I skills as well. And also, at the same time, I do want to, like, put some time for my, you know, if I want to travel to spend some time with my friends family, so it's just compatible like the four weeks in a month that I just compartment like this.

One of them to figure out what to do with each of them.

Yeah. With the would you say your end goal is to be more and more involved in hackathons? Or do you like kind of the balance that you have now? Because if you ask me with regards to podcasting, I would love to have these conversations more days. I'll every day. They all day long, except it's not really feasible because I have to do everything around it Logistics wise, as well as I have my day-to-day job, like, it's not realistic, but it would, I would like that.

So what about you? Yeah, again, it as I said, it's not realistic. And So currently the balance, I think that I have, I have finally made here, even with shifting to a new country adapting to a new culture, going to these hackathons in a different country. I could see that there were a lot of differences from my country and in UK, The way that you can have it also hosted and so adopting to all of that really did take time.

And so right now I am at a routine and schedule which works best for me. Yeah, and I would think that I can go above and beyond, but it would end up like me, killing myself. What most sustainable, not sustainable. And so, if I want to do this for the Long Haul, I've been doing this for over three years now, I think I asked out any 2019. So it would be like the fourth year and run and so I do want to do this for a long time.

I've already been doing it for so long and so if I timed myself out, we get after a weekend then would just wouldn't make any sense for me to continue doing something like that. I do things out of my love and passion for that particular event and so if I want to continue doing that I want to make sure that I take care of myself as well. So I do take my weekends off. I do take time off and just exist in my room, not do anything at all.

I do all of that stuff and the reason I do it is just to recharge refresh. And then be be my best self. These hackathons. Because the one thing that I have seen by you coach, is that you do have to be your best self at a hackathon. There are other hackers who are dependent on you for help. And so if I put in like instead of hundred night, just to 99% of my energy, it won't make sense to me or it won't be fair to the hackers to that. I am supporting that weekend. I do want to give my best.

I do want to give my 100% but I'm performing my duties as a coach and so, but I am at these events. I want to make sure that I'm refreshed recharged. And without any trouble whatsoever, I keep want to keep my troubles out the door and then be there at the event just to make sure that it's fun for me. It's fun for everyone and it's just a great, huge successful event as such. So, in order to balance all of that out, I think the current situation works perfectly for me

but I want to change that again. I'm going to India as I said this particular in the coming weeks and so I what I did was I did not take up any hackathon event during that period of time. Yeah, I could have, I would have definitely. Beacons, where I would be available, I won't have much to do. And so it would be great to go to a hackathon.

But this is the time where I want to carve out time to just spend time with my friends and family in India, who I haven't seen in a while, and so compartmentalizing. And just trying to have that time separately, having a personal personal work, and a hackathon life balance, is absolutely brilliant and essential. I think for everyone, yeah, I like that a lot like its, it makes it more realistic, right? If the thing doesn't give you

energy, Gigi anymore. And it's more of a must then it's not going to be sustainable. You're going to hate it. At some point, you're going to drop it. But the only way to do this for, as long as you have like, four years is awesome. Makes it the only way you can do is to find balance in whatever you're doing right? Whether it's time to recharge and spend time with friends and family, or finding balance with

work and your own time. Basically, I think that's the only way to do it which is really cool.

Cool. I've really enjoyed this conversation. So shreeka an insight Into the world of hackathons. I thought it was fascinating and I actually learned a lot more than I thought. I would, I thought I had it more so figured out how it would work, but there's a lot of facets, I didn't think of or have learned throughout this conversation. I think our audience will have as well. I hope so. Is there anything you still want to share before we leave off with regards to that?

Yeah, I think if you're listening to this podcast and you feel if you are have not been to hack it on before or if you are an experienced actor. Either way, I hope that this motivates everyone to Just stay involved with the community, even if your experience hacker, try to give back and come back as an alumni. For that particular hacker, a lot of my friends who are working in big Tech or startups to come back to these hackathons to actually support their

community. And if you are a beginner or a first-time hacker and a considering going to sell a similar event, please do so, it's super fun and I hope that is this inspires you to go there again, if you want more advice or just want to chat up my leg. Is always open. You can always reach out to be just drop in a message.

I would love to support you if it is in any way that I can, but with respect to hackathons or in any other way, but yeah, being there for the communities is one thing that I would say you should take away from this hack this podcast, if nothing else. But yeah, thank you so much Patrick. It was so great to chat with you. I feel like whenever I talk about hackathons in such a space it's just ignites that passion again and me. And so it's really great to chat.

Once in a while about this. And so it was so nice. Thank you so much for this discussion. No problem. Like I love that, I can feel the passion and energy like with some people, we talk about certain subject and maybe it's the way they talk about it but for you I could feel like a burning passion about it. So I really think that's admirable and I appreciate that. I'm going to round it off here everyone.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm going to put all such Rico's socials in the description below. Check her out. Let her know you came from our show. And with that being said, thanks again for listening. We'll see you on the next one.