Makeathon 2023
Each year, we host Makeathon, our annual internal version of a hackathon, where employees from across the business collaborate for three days to bring their dream passion projects to life. The ideas they pitch have a goal to improve our product, culture, internal processes or a combination of the three. This year, Makeathon was hosted from August 7–August 11. Groups connected from Monday through Wednesday, presentations were shared on Thursday in our Science Fair and we wrapped up the week with our Grand Awards Ceremony on Friday.
Today, we’re going behind the curtains and interviewing two employees who will share more about Makeathon 2023. First up, we’ll interview Chief Hack Doctor, Anirudh Koul (ML Data Science Manager), who will share some insight into the outcomes of Makeathon. Then, we’ll interview Juan Pablo Ramos (Software Engineer) to learn about his first Makeathon experience. Finally, we’ll give a big shout out to the Makeathon winners!
Interview with Anirudh Koul
Hi Chief Hack Doctor, thanks for joining us today! Can you introduce yourself and, most importantly, can you please tell us where you got your nickname?
Thank you for having me. I’m Anirudh Koul, and in my day job, I get to work on AI and Machine Learning at Pinterest. During Makeathon, I have the opportunity to be part of a team of experienced experts called Hack Doctors who are all running around in white lab coats. These experts are volunteers on standby all week to ‘diagnose’ issues and ‘prescribe’ solutions, with a goal to help projects shine. Whether it’s building a pitch, design, video or solving hurdles in data analysis, engineering and AI, Hack Doctors are around to support Pinterest employees during Makeathon. Of course, we use a lot of medical puns!
The team name was inspired by the “Icefall Doctors,” a team of elite sherpas charged with securing a route to Everest every year, allowing mountaineers to pass safely through the maze of deep crevasses and frozen cliffs. This year, 94% of the participating teams utilized the Hack Doctors. Luckily, being the first hack doctor, Leo Nagata (Principal Technical Program Manager) promoted me to “Chief Hack Doctor” status this year.
How did you get involved in Makeathon planning?
I have been going to hackathons for the last 17 years. I would build something personally intriguing and often turn those projects into my day job, eventually bringing them to life. Every event was a learning experience, and it taught me so many new skills beyond engineering. When I immigrated to North America, I lacked self-confidence and was always the quietest kid. Hackathons immersed me into a new world, pushing me outside of my comfort zone. For example, they compelled me to convey my ideas concisely with clarity to large audiences. I quickly found a love for the art of storytelling. Eventually, I found myself doing speaking engagements such as TEDx and the United Nations that I would never have dreamt in my wildest dreams. And for these projects, my teammates have even been recognized with international awards, met heads of state, been featured on TV and even received job offers. Hackathons truly changed my career!
The organizing team and I want to help create an environment where others can experience the same. People often have ideas, but they might only have a subset of skills to execute with. Makeathon allows them to discover people, often outside their usual circles, with the skill sets to solve the remaining pieces of the puzzle, turning their brainchild into reality. Discovering this joy of solving tough problems fast and the ability to learn skills rapidly ultimately develops the confidence that carries over into their daily work. Through the Makeathon, we hope people can realize their maximum potential.
Can you share more about the Innovation Cycle at Pinterest?
In most hackathons, while you can have a great experience, unfortunately most of the ideas never progress further after the event ends. At Pinterest, we want to ensure all ideas are heard and given a fair shot at being implemented within our product or culture.
Our Innovation Cycle has three steps. They are:
- Idea Factory
- Makeathon
- Planning
First, we built a company-wide portal called the Idea Factory, where anyone can go to share their ideas throughout the year. Then, other employees across the company vote on ideas. If the idea gets enough votes, it will be expedited for review with our senior leaders.
Next, ideas often require derisking, prototyping and deeper analysis, a perfect task for the Makeathon. Often, participants can be hesitant to take the leap. To solve that, we started a number of initiatives:
- Showcase tour: We share success stories from people across the business, not just engineering, who have built projects and brought them to life. Relatable stories make first time participants wonder, “If they could do it, what’s stopping me?” This increases participation.
- Skill-building classes: Open to all, we hosted three sessions to teach a range of skills to help rapidly turn ideas into action. Keeping them inclusive, the classes showed that you don’t need to be an engineer to build an app. We even had classes on Generative AI and GPT. We made them comical and personable to drive engagement. These classes broke records with over 1,500 attendees in a single class. Plus, individuals learned skills that they could continue to use in their day jobs.
- Hack Doctors: When it was time to start collaborating, we brought in the Hack Doctors who served as the guides during the journey. Even if people were hesitant to participate, all they needed was a little guidance and an ecosystem of support.
Finally, the day after projects are showcased, we have a team that takes these ideas to leaders during the planning season. In 2021, 66% of Makeathon projects got launched or influenced our product roadmap plans. If they weren’t accepted, leaders provided transparent feedback which helps project leads learn key takeaways for future projects.
This was Pinterest’s 11th Makeathon, what is the importance of Makeathon?
Makeathon is the living definition of synthesizing ideation and innovation. It gives employees the freedom to go beyond their day job, focusing their energy on bringing their ideas to life. With people from other skill sets and organizations joining in, it’s amazing to witness how seemingly impossible problems get solved so quickly.
Can you give us some insight into Makeathon 2023? How many projects and participants did we have?
Here are some quick stats:
- 326 participants from eight countries
- 198 ideas
- 85 projects
- 5728 votes from Pinployees across the business
- 1500 live attendees in a single skill-building class
- 2500 total attendees over all classes
Now, let’s hear from JP Ramos on how his first Makeathon went!
Interview with Juan Pablo Ramos
Hi JP, welcome back to the hot seat! We last spoke in your Life at Pinterest interview. Let’s start with another quick intro.
Thanks, happy to be here! For those who didn’t catch the past interview, I’ve been an iOS Engineer in the Client Excellence team, which is part of App Foundations at Pinterest, for over a year now. My day-to-day work consists of making the iOS Pinterest app best in class. This year I participated for the first time in Makeathon with my very own project initiative. Read along to find out how it went.
How was your first Makeathon?
My Makeathon week started with a team meeting to share ideas on how to actually implement the feature we wanted to build. During Makeathon, all Pinployees are encouraged to work on anything they wish. We had to take some time to read more about the part of the app we were planning to work on. After that, it was coding time! We developed a plan and got to work on it. It was really fun getting out of the routine and challenging ourselves with something different. We got three full days to develop our minimum viable product (MVP), for which we also created a promotional video. The video was really good, Spielberg watch out! I wish you all could see what we came up with, who knows, maybe one day you’ll open Pinterest and see something… new!
What were you most surprised about?
What surprised me the most during Makeathon was the creative energy that prevailed across the company. Everyone was really focused on creating amazing tools and features! Another great thing about this week was seeing the collaboration between engineering, sales, IT and basically teams from all disciplines here at Pinterest. By Thursday, teams start sharing their demos. You get to try some projects, watch creative and fun videos and chat with folks on how they came up with their ideas and what steps it took to make them a reality. It was a really fun week!
Will you be participating next year?
Of course, I can’t wait for Makeathon 2024. Next time, I’d like to be part of a cross-discipline team. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for cool opportunities we can build together, get to meet new people and continue making Pinterest an inspiring place!
Let’s celebrate our Makeathon 2023 Winners!
We have seven awards that were granted to project teams, including five awards that mirror our core company values. Check out the individuals who won!
Judges’ Choice Award: David Rojas Camaggi, Travis Chan, Stacy Kelsey, Frances Lee
Crowd Favorite Award: Tom Spratt, Marty Nikolova, Brodie Gullic, Daniel Richardson, Raudha Ahmad, Jon Chen, Beverlyn Law, Peony Chuen, Doruk Korkmaz, Elise Wright, Frances Lee, Mutesi Ntazinda, Anirudh Koul
Put Pinners First Award: Edgar Chaparro, Justin Mangue
Aim for Extraordinary Award: Kritarth Anand, AJ Oxendine, Sarah Tao, Diana Wong, Kirsten Browne, Jonatan Luna, Armando Leal, Matt Beattie, J.J Hu
Create Belonging Award: Madelyn Reyes, Giovanni Propersi, Florian Marcu
Act as One Award: Sarah Pervaiz, Anirudh Koul, Nimalan Bala, Doug Rangel, Rivy Obinomen, Hannah Hester, Leon Arnold, Charlie Gu, Nick Erickson, Akshat Amritkar, J.C. Zhong, Swati Kumar, Feras Alazzeh, Matthew Lawhon
Win or Learn Award: Faye Zhang
To learn more about engineering at Pinterest, check out the rest of our Engineering Blog and visit our Pinterest Labs site. To explore and apply to open roles, visit our Careers page.
