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- pick projects that you believe will have positive impact on magoosh. they don\u2019t need to relate your department or a currently scoped project.<\/li>\n
- you can\u2019t force other people to work with you, so if you\u2019d like other people to help you, get creative. try to make trades (e.g. one of our former engineers, zach, worked on a zendesk widget in exchange for our director of student help, kevin rocci, to dress up in costume).\n<\/li>\n
- check the asana hack days project for ideas that others have added to the backlog over time for inspiration, and claim your idea once you\u2019re set so that people can know what you\u2019re working on.<\/li>\n
- feel free to skip out on hack days. it\u2019s completely optional. you can work on regular work instead.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
even though this event is designed to be fun, there is a lot of care taken in communicating the timeline, inspiration, and resources available so that every magoosher can take advantage of hack days.<\/p>\n
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the hacking + demos<\/h3>\n
once hack days arrives, we have a 15-minute kickoff meeting for people to share what they\u2019re working on, and that gives way to more collaboration opportunities. as each person announces his or her project, everyone oohs<\/i> and aahs<\/i> for ideas that they like or laughs for sillier ones. then we\u2019re off! hacking happens during the normal work day and there\u2019s no pressure to keep working into the night like some of the hackathons i participated in while in college. we get lunch catered on both days so that it\u2019s easier to stay focused during the work sprint. at the end of the two days, we go around and present what we worked on, and everyone is encouraged to present even if they didn\u2019t finish what they set out to do. listening to hack days demos is a great chance to see some cool projects and to feel how supportive magooshers are to each other.<\/p>\n
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feedback<\/h3>\n
after we finish hack days, melanie collects feedback from everyone and shares the results with the company (feedback is a big part of magoosh\u2019s culture). in the context of hack days, the feedback and metrics we track tell us when to do another hack days and how to make hack days better. for example, we know from collecting feedback that an average of 60-70% magooshers participate during each hack days. most people enjoy it and find this time spent to be impactful, but surveys also tell us that satisfaction depends largely on when in the quarter hack days are scheduled, how much encouragement there is from management to participate, as well as how formal of a collaboration process exists during the hacking. based on this data, we can work to improve our hack days each time they happen and optimize for maximum team enjoyment and participation.<\/p>\n
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some of my favorite hacks<\/h3>\n
i\u2019ve been working at magoosh for about a year and a half, and during that time the company has hosted four hackathons. it\u2019s especially cool when the projects we work on during hack days actually end up being prioritized later on. for example, melanie brought in an amazon echo and joked about how it\u2019d be cool if magoosh made a skill for it. i thought that was actually an awesome idea, so during one hack days, i created an adaptation of our most popular mobile apps in the form of an alexa skill: magoosh vocabulary builder.<\/a> the hack took me one hack days to prototype, and then another 2-3 days to finish enough to submit to the amazon store for certification. i enjoyed mashing existing magoosh content with amazon\u2019s new voice api and working with melanie to scope features down into a usable skill. on the way, i learned about the magoosh vocabulary api, amazon\u2019s lambda functions, and used node.js in production for the first time.<\/p>\n
to my surprise, the alexa skill quickly became one of the amazon store\u2019s most popular trivia skills, with 12,000 weekly active users and a 4-star rating over 100+ reviews. and because of that, we\u2019re now prioritizing the creation of more skills. it\u2019s a lot of fun for me to explore this new technology and it\u2019s great to apply the coding standards and strategies we have in other parts of our codebase to new projects.<\/p>\n
here are some more of my favorite products and features that have come out of magoosh hack days:<\/p>\n
- \n\t<\/p>\n
magoosh vocabulary chrome extension<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
this hack, created by zack mayeda<\/a> (engineering), puts a random gre vocabulary word on every new tab you open in the chrome browser along with a definition and sample sentence. you can even click on the play button to hear a sample pronunciation of the word. so far, almost 30,000 students have downloaded the extension.<\/p>\n
my cat is studying for the gre<\/h4>\n
this hack was made by rachel wisuri and lena brooks (marketing) and was inspired by the goal of making the cutest magoosh video of all time. i think they succeeded. you can take a look for yourself<\/a> and let me know.<\/p>\n
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highbrow: most influential business school case studies<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
peter poer(content and operations) compiled a list of business school case studies and published them as a series of lessons on the highbrow email course platform. over 5,000 students have signed up for this 10-day course.<\/p>\n
latex editor<\/a><\/h4>\n
aria<\/a> (a former engineer) added latex formatting capability to our admin interface so that we no longer have to upload images to make math formulas look nice. mike mcgarry<\/a>, our beloved gmat curriculum manager, was especially ecstatic about this hack.\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/files\/2017\/08\/latex-magoosh.png\")
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in conclusion…<\/h3>\n
of course, our hack days process hasn\u2019t always been as polished as it is now. i\u2019ve heard that hack days has evolved a lot over time — it used to only span one day (which means we didn\u2019t have as much time to experiment), did not have lunch catered (so the event felt more like a normal work day), and didn\u2019t start with any brainstorming process. we\u2019ve now implemented all these parts and even have fun side-events during the hackathon like guess-the-baby-picture and music playlist swapping. if you\u2019re looking to implement a regular hackathon-type event at your workplace, the key to making it better is to just start with something and then get feedback!<\/b><\/p>\n
i\u2019m grateful that magoosh hack days have expanded my skills as an engineer. i\u2019ve taken these opportunities to exercise fast prototyping and work with people in different departments. for example, during our next hack days, i\u2019m planning to team up with our data scientist, sam ju<\/a>, and our in-house vocabulary wizard, chris lele<\/a> to build out a new mobile app game.<\/p>\n
i also appreciate how these events have bolstered our team\u2019s culture. when we regularly celebrate experimentation and innovation, good things happen: i become more receptive to receiving and processing criticism on my work, everybody\u2019s fun ideas turn into valuable investments, and our students ultimately gain access to a better studying experience.<\/p>\n
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interested in working at magoosh? check out our open positions<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
if you don\u2019t see an open position that\u2019s perfect for you, please submit your resume via the general application<\/a>.<\/p>\n