Behind the scenes
Hackfest 2022: share your ideas!
by Coya Vallejo Hägi
Digitec Galaxus Hackfest 2022: the lowdown
15.7.2022
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pictures: Christian Walker
The Digitec Galaxus Hackfest kept our developers on their toes for three intense days. Two teams bagged trophies this year after taking on challenges from the Community.
The long hours that passed between the welcome breakfast and the Th(urst)day beer session may well have whizzed by for the Digitec Galaxus Hackfest contenders. A total of 24 teams went head-to-head for the three-day coding challenge. Their mission? To create a new feature or service for our online shop or ERP system within 54 hours.
In previous years, the ideas for these challenges were pitched by employees. This year, however, we asked the Digitec Galaxus Community for their input – and input we got! This resulted in six Hackfest 2022 teams forming around Community ideas. Each of these teams fought for the title in the «Community Queens & Kings» category.
But internal ideas also got a look-in as part of the «traditional» category «Hackfest Queens & Kings». There, the remaining 18 teams battled it out to come up with the best solutions for the internal challenges.
To top things off, a third category saw company founders Florian Teuteberg and Oliver Herren awarding the «Founders’ Prize» to a team which, in their eyes, had come up with a particularly good solution.
Set against the summery Zurich backdrop of our warm offices, things stayed cordial at the Hackfest sessions and particularly the prize-giving, despite all the excitement and the rivalry. Maybe it was because the participants always had snacks from Delica AG, Feldschlösschen beer, Red Bull and El Tony Mate to hand. These brands were the exclusive sponsors of this year’s Hackfest.
The winners
The deciding moment of the competition was the pitch presentation round on the final day – the highlight of the programming event. The small teams had to pitch their solutions to the audience in a 3-minute presentation. Everyone attending the event in-person or remotely was allowed to vote in the Community and Hackfest categories. Awarding the Founders’ Prize, however, was down to Florian and Oliver alone.
After the first drum roll, «The Price is Rice» team were crowned the winners in the «Community Queens & Kings» category. The five-person crew programmed a feature that notifies customers as soon as the price of a product drops below their desired level. Evidently, the Community aren’t the only ones thirsting after this idea – the employees in the crowd were psyched about it too.
In the traditional Hackfest category, the «Tetris» team nabbed the top spot. With an impressive live demo, they managed to win over even their most determined rivals. The trio created an internal scanning feature that tells you how different products can be packed together at a particularly low cost, saving on as much unused space and air cushions as possible.
The solution to a Community idea also triumphed in the third category, the Founders’ Prize. It was presented by the «Up to Data» team, a six-person squad which focused on an issue highlighted by the Community – partially missing or inaccurate product data. Their solution? An edit button on product detail pages that would allow logged-in users to modify product specifications.
What about dark mode?
While you’ve been reading about our Hackfest winners, you might’ve noticed that the Digitec Galaxus dark mode solution didn’t make it to the podium. That’s because we didn’t take on the issue as a Hackfest challenge.
Not because Digitec Galaxus is against Dark Mode – many of our developers are big fans of it – but because we’d already started working on this challenge before the Hackfest. After all, we’re aware that when it comes to new ideas, dark mode is by far the most in-demand solution. That’s why the issue is a high priority on our roadmap, with or without Hackfest.
If you’re interested in why dark mode is such a complex issue for our site, feel free to let us know in the comments. Then we’ll write a detailed follow-up article about it in the near future.
Here’s what’s next for our Hackfest ideas
Back to the winning ideas of Hackfest 2022. It’ll be apparent within the next few weeks whether the ideas will be implemented. «The feasibility of the outcomes of the challenges will now be tested by the relevant teams», confirms Head of Product, Tobias Quelle. «I can’t make any promises yet, but I’m sure some ideas will end up on the teams’ roadmaps.»
He’s of the opinion that incorporating ideas from the Community was a complete success. «I hope our users will continue to provide us with input next year – and maybe get even more involved». What that involvement might look like, though, is still up in the air.
Fancy finding out more details about Hackfest and how it came about? Read this interview with Tobias Quelle and Veronica Damigella from the OC.
Five Hackfest participants also took to Instagram to answer questions about the most common developer stereotypes. So, if you’d like to get to know a few of the faces of our product development team, check out the video here.
«I want it all! The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles!» – these words spoken by an iconic American TV celebrity could have been mine. It's a take on life I also apply to my job. What does this mean in concrete terms? That every story has its charm; no matter how small, large, exciting or trivial. The more eclectic the mix, the better.
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