Meet Dropbox Hack Week heroes: first-time hackers who rose to the challenge
Hack Week is a special time at Dropbox. For a moment, Dropboxers get to set aside their everyday work and focus on working together to build something that previously only existed in their dreams — something that will make their job easier, improve how they connect with their coworkers, or help non-profits maximize their impact (such as our Dropbox Foundation partners). And for first-time hackers, it feels like the sky’s the limit — and they’re more than ready to rise to the challenge.
One such participant is Product Designer Yunjie Yao, who joined Dropbox just a month before Hack Week. She led the design of two Hack Week projects: Better DropAbout, a project to make remote work easier by helping employees understand coworkers’ availability and team structure, and Dropbox Reads, a project to create an online reading community at Dropbox. The latter project won the Make (Virtual First) Work Human award, designated for projects that either solve a challenge that we face as a virtual first team or spark joy as we work from anywhere.
But the award was only an afterthought for Yunjie, who gained so much more than that during the project. She said, “I felt lucky to be able to work on Hack Week during my first month here because I quickly got a deep understanding of company culture. We’re creative, kind, smart people that enjoy working together. And I got a chance to learn from some very inspirational folks in the industry. It’s a rewarding and unforgettable experience.”
Yunjie isn’t alone in finding inspiration through Hack Week — inspiration that can blend into daily work and carry Dropboxers through the rest of the year. Fellow Dropbox Reads team member and Software Engineer Wooyang Son said, “As someone participating in Hack Week for the first time ever, I felt so inspired by all the projects people worked on. Personally, I find it important to keep learning and being inspired at work to stay motivated, and HackWeek was a great opportunity to do that!”
One common misconception about Hack Week is that you have to be in a technical role to participate. This is far from the case at Dropbox! No matter what your job is, there’s a place for you to lend a helping hand. Just ask DEI Program Manager Stephanie Smith, who worked on IRL Lighthouse, a real-time map on which Dropboxers can set their location and co-working status so that other Dropboxers can come join them and make in-person connections.
Stephanie said of her experience, “As my first Hack Week, it was really fun to work on a project completely outside of my comfort zone and day-to-day, and even though I’m non-technical, I was able to contribute to the project in a meaningful way! It also enabled me to get to know some Dropboxers across different teams I otherwise might never have met.” Those Dropboxers included Harry Zhou, an Engineering Intern, and Senior Product Marketing Manager Ariana Tiwari, who said, “As someone who joined Dropbox remotely just three months ago, facilitating connections at a new company was very important to me. Hack Week allowed me to work with a variety of people across the company, become immersed in Dropbox culture, and work on something fun that I was passionate about!”
