Built Fall 2021 Hack Week: Recap

Built’s engineering teams get to take a reprieve from their day-to-day to participate in our recurring “hack week” event. It’s a dedicated week of time to step out of the structure of development delivery and innovate. This event is an opportunity to help individuals get a clear focus on the things at Built that they’re passionate about—all while finding new skill sets and renewed creative energy. And, as a bonus, participants are able to collaborate with team members they may not get to in their usual workday, learning about new people and new tech stacks at the same time. Everything that comes out of our hack week helps improve our product and maintains momentum for the remainder of the year.

We asked a few of this fall’s hack week participants to share their experiences! Here’s what they had to say: 

“Hack week is one of my favorite events because it provides the opportunity to prioritize and creatively solve business needs. For this last hack week, I got the chance to work with Engineers from a different team. Our goal was to lay the foundation for a new feature that will make it so much easier to manage Built users.” – Morley Bankston, Senior Software Engineer

“I wasn’t quite sure what to think about it going into the week, but it ended up being an absolute blast. It was awesome working with and learning from people outside of my team. The whole experience gave me a better connection to everyone involved. As a bonus, we built something awesome that our customers are going to love!” – Gib Bowden, Software Engineer

“Hack week allows people across the organization to come together on projects they are passionate about that otherwise might never get attention.  It drives innovation, forges relationships, boosts morale, and delivers outsized returns in value to our organization for what’s invested.  My personal favorite reason for loving hack week is that our people get to experiment with new ways of working together, and that can help us improve our systems and processes. “Why can’t we work this way all the time?” is a question I pay very close attention to as I seek to improve our processes.” – Jesse Gray, VP of Engineering

“Hack week was absolutely killer! It was so much fun to be able to come together with other engineers from across the company to build something new or improve upon something existing. The idea I submitted was a personal passion for me and I didn’t really think that there’d be very many people who would also be into it. Seeing how many people signed up to do it and were fired up around the work was so gratifying! It felt so connected to everyone on my hack week team because we all deeply cared about the work. And seeing all of the mind-blowing work the other teams had completed at the end of the week? Fuggedaboutit! Best week ever.” – Sydney Noh, Software Engineer

“It was an immensely enjoyable experience. I was able to collaborate with other team members across team functions. Built has developed a fun, productive workspace, and the hack week highlights it.” – Bingxu Ren, Software Engineer

“Creating a space for innovation seeds to be planted and take root is an essential part of keeping this organization healthy and growing fast.  Not only does Built benefit from fresh ideas and the introduction of new technology but our team members personally grow and fulfill their desire to continuously develop themselves.  This last hack week once again delivered in a big way on all fronts. I’m very proud of the effort that was poured into this event and the results they delivered.” – Bill Parker, Chief Technology Officer