Come one, come all, to our very first MB Success Stories series!
Welcome to the EXCITING experience of a Mintbean hackathon winner before, during and after a Mintbean hackathon!
The purpose of these series is help newcomers to Mintbean (and the overall scope of Hackathons) understand the value that can come from participating in a hackathon. A lot of newer devs shy away or get scared by the idea of a "hackathon", but we want you to know that this experience is a way to elevate your skills and help boost your visibility in the job market!
For our first series, we interviewed our JavaScript Olympics winners Leo Li, Ryan Tran, and Bryan Sillorequez! This is a three part interview from each winner, and today we will introduce you to Ryan Tran! Here is his Mintbean hackathon journey!
Ryan Tran: find him on LinkedIn here
Question 1: Was this your first hackathon? What does the word hackathon make you think? Does it intimidate you or excite you?
Ryan: Yes, this was my first hackathon! To me, I think of a hackathon as a way to showcase my work. Even if I weren’t participating in a hackathon, I would be doing similar things to continue growing as a developer. Being able to showcase some of that work in a hackathon is very exciting for me!
Question 2: How did you choose your Mintbean hackathon team? List one top quality from both partner's!
Ryan: As a graduate of App Academy, I chose my team members based on people I had close interactions with in my cohort. Because I’ve worked so closely with them, I knew I could count on them. With that being said, I would say that my team members’ greatest strength is their resourcefulness. I knew that even if we encountered a difficult task, they would be able to work through it using the skills that we’ve picked up during our time at App Academy.
Question 3: What made you excited about Mintbean’s hackathon specifically? Anything catch your eye that made you think “wow, I HAVE to do this”?
Ryan: I was really excited about this particular hackathon because it involved building a serverless kanban board using whatever technology stack we desired, with the only constraint being Javascript. This was really exciting for me because I am a Full Stack Engineer geared towards Front End Development, so this was a really exciting opportunity for me!
Question 4: What was your inspiration behind your winning project, “tmrw”?
Ryan: As someone who is geared more towards Front End Development, my inspiration was to build a web application with an intuitive interface and experience that is both visually appealing and easy to use.
Question 5: What were your struggles during the hackathon? What were your wins? Those A-HA moments that make you wanna high-five everyone!
Ryan: One struggle I had during the hackathon was figuring out a way to implement a “tour” feature. My team and I wanted to build a neat feature akin to other web applications, where you would be presented with a tour of the application’s features, where they are located, and how to interact with them. I was able to find a library to do this, but the documentation was a bit confusing at first. I definitely had to do some testing, and apply a bit of trial and error before figuring out how to properly use it to meet our needs, but it was definitely satisfying to see it all work out in the end!
Question 6: How did the “Mintbean method” help your hackathon experience? Did you get help from a mentor? Did you get help from the community?
Ryan: My team and I didn’t need much help from the mentors, or from the Mintbean community, because the hackathon didn’t require a specific tech stack. I will say, however, that it’s definitely reassuring to know that we could have received some help if we had received different requirements that involved specific technologies we weren’t familiar with.
Question 7: How was your experience POST Mintbean hackathon win?
Ryan: My experience post win was really exciting! I’m the type of person to rarely post on social media platforms, but this really encouraged me to break out of my comfort zone and make my first few posts on LinkedIn, all of which were well received!
Question 8: Did this impact your job hunt in a positive way?
Ryan: This experience definitely affected my job search in a positive way. I was contacted by a high school acquaintance who works at a company that builds a product that is VERY similar to the hackathon prompt.
Question 9: If you could tell someone who is too intimidated to try a hackathon anything to encourage them, what would you tell them?
Ryan: For anyone working towards their first junior developer position that is intimidated by hackathons, I would say don’t be! You’re already building your personal portfolio with projects, and practising your skills on real world problems, so participating in a hackathon is right in line with what you’re currently doing. Just get out of your comfort zone, and try it out. It can only benefit you in the long run!
Question 10: Would you do a Mintbean hackathon again?
Ryan: I would love to do another Mintbean hackathon in the future!
Check out the winning project here: mintkanban.github.io/MintKanban/#
Tune in for Leo and Bryan's experience on the next blog post!
To learn more about Mintbean, the community, our workshops, and meetups, check out our website here: mintbean.io
If you would like to attend a hackathon yourself (or with a team), check out our upcoming hackathons here: