I am completing 10 years of my Software Engineering graduation and last week I was able to participate in my first Hackathon.
I do not recall it as so popular in SWE courses by the old times as it is nowadays, but I do not doubt I missed some opportunities during graduation too. Fact is that 6 years in the oil industry made me miss this moment where every SWE student had a solid track of Hackathons she/he has engaged in.
As I came back to the SWE career I certainly belong to, very soon I had the opportunity to work at VTEX Hackathon and my first reaction was "I feel to old to work overnight eating snacks and drinking soda". I was 30. Behind that feeling, there were layers of insecurity about my capacity of learning something new and contributing in a constrained amount of time. I respect my sense of guarding myself by then: overcoming ghosts is a process, and a career change cannot be seen as something simple.. everybody has their pace for assimilating the new place and feel belongingness.
FUN FACT: 😛 In this meanwhile I helped organize and mentored VTEX's partners Hackaton in the biggest event of the company, the VTEX Day. 🤷♀️
Now, 3 years later, it was time to debut! It was another VTEX Hackathon, and we had 2 days to cover an interesting idea for the company. It was SO. MUCH. FUN! It is like daily work but much more chilled out. Felt fresh, easy-going, and made me connect with all the things that makes me believe that SWE is my thing. It was a time to create/reinforce connections with colleagues and learn interesting things. Worths mentioning that I also felt proud about the results.
We used Gather Town to simulate the office environment and the experience close enough to working in presence. Loved it!
I must say that I am not sure I will make it to other hackathons.. I really feel a bit old for that 😆. But most of my adventures started with something I was a bit old to be doing.
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