Hack Week at Material Security is our annual week-long Hackathon where everyone works with whomever they want on whatever they want—without any predefined processes, meetings, or team structures.
What is Hack Week?
Hack Week at Material Security is our annual week-long Hackathon where everyone works with whomever they want on whatever they want—without any predefined processes, meetings, or team structures. To be clear though, “whatever they want” isn’t about building jetpacks or a new surfboard: projects must be broadly related to Material Security and must be demonstrated to the whole company before we all head home at the end of the week.
Hack Week gives us space to explore things in a low pressure environment–allowing enough time and space for teammates to explore their ideas, collaborate, and have fun. As a remote-first company, it's one of a handful of critical times per year where we come together in-person and get to know one another and spend quality time together. Everyone is encouraged to form truly cross-functional teams, so people who don’t normally work directly together can get time with each other–as well as benefit from the creativity and talent across the entire company.
Hack Week Highlights
Hack Week has been a huge success for Material on multiple levels. We’ve only been running these for a couple of years, but already in that short time we’ve already had multiple critical elements of our products spring from Hack Week projects. On top of that, the week creates room for personal growth and exploration, giving everyone a chance to step out of their comfort zone.
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Hack Week isn’t just a four day creative jam session though. We take a break out of our day-to-day work to connect with our teammates at a variety of events. This past Hack Week’s events included:
- “Material Girls” Cocktail Hour for those a part of our women’s group at Material Security
- Afternoon team building activities at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
- Company and team dinners
- “Mandatory Fun” on the last night of Hack Week to hang out, reflect, and enjoy the culmination of a fulfilling week… complete with beverages and food trucks.
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Similar to last year, the 2024 Hack Week projects featured ideas and executions that fit seamlessly into our strategic objectives and tactical approaches. With so many great ideas, we of course had to have a full slate of awards at the end of the week–loosely themed around the Olympics and a smattering of inside jokes. So without further ado, we want to show love and appreciation to our winners:
- Zoom Has Tabs Now (Most Cross-Functional Project): This award went to an internal tooling focused project that’s useful to teams involved in a growing product space.
- Turkish Sharpshooter (Most Business Impact): The winner of this award devised an approach to our infrastructure that makes our business more scalable.
- Australian Breakdancing (Most Ambitious): The team that brought home this trophy built an approach to a future product space we hope to pursue within the next year (stay tuned!).
- Laura’s Robot (Best Overall): This coveted award went to a design/front-end focused project that’s already been deployed externally, and can already seen in our product and website!
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We want to thank the nearly 100 folks who joined us this year for Hack Week–and a special shout out to the dedicated team who planned and executed the activities throughout the week! We can’t wait to see everyone again for our next get together at our Annual Company Kickoff–and then again for Hack Week 2025!
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