Hack week reflections: My Kisi hack week history

I'm Gustaf, the Hardware Team Lead based in Stockholm. I've worked at Kisi for 3+ years, and have attended 3 hack weeks.

Hack weeks at Kisi are great. They give us the opportunity to meet up with all our colleagues and work on something very different for a whole week.

The first hack week #

My first hack week was the Summer hack week of 2022. Kisi had rented a beautiful place out in the Stockholm Archipelago. We were able to barbeque, play football, go swimming, and sauna. During this hack week, we highly underestimated how much time it would take to do our project and overestimated how much time we actually had during the days. This hack week's focus was more on team-building activities and getting to know everyone.

2023 winter hack week #

In the winter hack week of 2023, we did not go anywhere but stayed at the office. Our remote colleagues worked remotely. This allowed us much more time to use for the projects. We had this idea to create a nice way to visualize how our devices talk to each other. We teamed up - the hardware team, a designer, and a web developer and created something really useful. Through sheer teamwork, we actually did something that the hack week truly represents.

2023 summer hack week #

A bit earlier than the summer 2023 hack week, we had moved to a new, pretty large office, so we were finally able to fit every product member in-house. Combining teambuilding events and a lot of time to work on a project was nice. We worked with no other teams, only the hardware team. Not having to keep a GitHub and purely being able to hyper-focus allowed us to tackle a huge project. We are used to working together, so we could split up the work evenly. However, this was not really according to what hack week is supposed to be about. But that´s fine, too. We had a blast and managed to do something I´ve been wanting to build for years.

Experience the Kisi Hack Week from a different perspective #

• Read the first part of Kisi’s ‘Hack Week Reflections’ series – 'Unlocking innovation, one idea at a time'. Enjoy insider access from the product documentation writer’s perspective.
• Curious how we hacked the office with music and announcements? Read the second part of this series and experience hack week through the lens of the web developer.
• Explore the second part of our Kisi's summer hack week project series. Take a closer look at our emergency button project, which would enable Kisi users to lock down an entire premise.
• Discover how three Kisi music aficionados worked on an app that allows employees to access the office with their favorite theme song during hack week. Read the 'Kisi elevating office vibes with customized entrance music' blog.
• Join Ashish Mishra, Web Developer, for the final part of our 2023 Hack Week Reflections series: Explore The Deep Purple Chronicles.
• Take a stroll down memory lane and read about the summer edition of the 2022 Hack Week, where 20 team members from over seven countries gathered in Gålö, Sweden.