A Product and Technology Hackathon 2023
Check out Amitesh Sinha’s blog written before the event, “Leading Innovation through Hackathon at Paylocity: Join us in this journey!”, then come back here for interviews with participants, the hackathon organization committee, as well as excerpts from projects and discussions about planning a hackathon.
The word “hackathon” has varying definitions and can describe very different events depending on who you’re talking to. At Paylocity, we just finished our first internal hackathon, where it meant, “taking time to embark on a journey to build new prototypes as well as improve on existing products, platforms, and processes,” so our teams had no restrictions on what they could create.
So how did the idea of a hackathon come about? Organizing committee member Amitesh Sinha gave us a look into his process.
“I have been working in technology leadership roles at startups and enterprises for more than two decades. Throughout my career, I’ve observed a consistent need for nurturing innovation. Paylocity, being an innovative company, places a significant emphasis on empowering its employees to generate fresh ideas.
In an effort to provide a framework for this innovative spirit, I aimed to establish a structured approach. This involved allocating dedicated time and space for our exceptional employees, allowing them the opportunity to conceive and execute creative concepts while having fun collaborating with the multi-functional teams.”
Paylocity sets aside a day every month for the entire Product and Technology organization to learn, famously called Day of Gracious Learning (DoGL). So, for the September 2023 DoGL we wanted to work on the innovation that Paylocity is so well known for. Over 35 teams signed up for the hackathon. Proposed projects included web apps, native iOS functionality within our mobile app, data stores in AWS, and scripts that teams can use to increase their productivity.
Organizing committee member Scott Jucovics commented on what he’d like to see teams create.
“Of course I have aspirations of seeing creative new innovative tech that solves all our problems but in reality, I am really excited to see a diverse set of solutions, prototypes, or improvements. These could be simpler solutions to long standing issues for our customers or for Paylocity. I am always interested in functionality that improves the usability for our customers, but performance and process improvements can have a massive impact on our day to day. Really the sky is the limit. I have always been inspired by how funny and creative everyone is, so I expect to see both.”
With our large pool of teams, they delivered just that. We saw things customers would be excited about, things fellow employees would benefit from, and internal projects that sped up mundane processes.
As a customer driven company, we aim to ensure customers have the best possible experience using the Paylocity suite every day. Senior Software Engineer Kris Franzen and his team focused on a project that would reduce the time it takes users to set up documents for their employees to fill out.
Some teams tackled problems that would save Paylocity money in the long run. Software Engineer Spencer Adams commented on an update to the Year End software that he was working on, saying that his team “worked on optimizing a backend system Paylocity uses to import tax data. We estimate this could save Paylocity hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next 3 years”.
Paylocity’s Product and Technology organization is fully virtual and has been since before it was considered the industry standard. Sinha also commented on how this affected the hackathon.
“In today’s landscape, the majority of modern enterprises operate with teams dispersed across various geographical locations. It is imperative that we delve into strategies for optimizing the engagement and involvement of these geographically diverse teams, while also eliminating any impediments that may hinder their participation, e.g., our Czech Republic teams will hack in their own time zones, without worrying about other office’s time zone.”
This led to wonderful banter via Slack and fun collaboration sessions via video chat. Participants touted their ideas as best, with Product Manager Rishi Gupta messaging a channel with all the hackers, “Hey quick question for the group. If our hack is already built and implements the most perfect code ever created, can we help other teams with their code to reach 2nd place?” While he was joking of course, the confidence and small jest kept things light and fun for participants.
“I expect it to be fun [and] I expect to be surprised by great ideas I didn’t even think about,” Jucovics commented when asked about the outcomes he anticipated, “I [also] expect to have more buzz and excitement within P&T for when we will have our second hackathon”.
The organizing group planned for failure too, as no good idea can be 100% successful given such a short period of time. “Failures might occur when teams attempt overly ambitious projects within the time constraints,” Rokita noted when we talked to him before the event. He urged teams to think big but then choose a more manageable project for the two-day constraint.
But really, why spend all this time and allot so many resources to the hackathon? Sinha and Jucovics both agreed that, “the hackathon is all about fostering innovation. We have some of the sharpest engineers here at Paylocity… [and] the hackathon is a great way to unleash that expertise”. Teams were encouraged to work outside their normal team boundaries and cross collaborate between all sectors of Product and Technology, “and really demonstrate that all of us know more than one of us”.
So , what do we expect the “hackers” to do with their projects when the hackathon is over? Delete their GitHub repos and forget the event ever happened, or ship the projects out to customers tomorrow? We hope to find some middle ground, as organization committee member Slawek Rokita notes that, “promising prototypes, concepts, or ideas may be integrated into our company’s roadmap for lasting impact.” This means that someday you might see the cool iOS calendar feature or notice a decrease in resolution time for benefits support tickets as teams work their hackathon projects into to the 2024 Fiscal Year deliverables.
Staying on the cutting edge of technology and feature delivery is essential in an ever changing and highly technological world. Our first internal hackathon was a way to promote this, focus on breaking up our day to day, and getting ready to enter year end with a fresh perspective.
Congratulations to the top five teams:
John X. MarkstheSpot
Members: Kris Franzen, Chris Montoya, Shea Spear, Cory Miller
Date Breakers
Members: Jiri Praus, Martin Hosna, Dominik Bucher, Bogdan Kurpakov Reskinning WebGlobe’s UI
Members: Pavel Benes, Travis Austin, Ron Traylor
Paylocity IDP-based AWS Access
Members: Mirnal Singh, Roey Ben-Yoseph, Kevin Warnke, William Loo, Aaron Carlo, Venu Reddy, Cara Guan, Reika Hayashi
PCTY Desktop App with Electron
Members: Jiri Nohavec, Jan Jezek, Jan Rada
