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Yelp Hackathon 13: Hacking and Unhacking from Hamburg to San Francisco



Hackathon has become a time-honored tradition here at Yelp, with engineers putting everyday responsibilities aside for 48 hours to work on any project that strikes their fancy. For the first time in Hackathon history we made it a global event, with engineers in Yelp’s Hamburg office joining in on the action for our recent Hackathon 13.

One SF-based mobile engineer even traveled to Germany to work with teammates based in Hamburg. The result of their project? Inventive use of hardware circuit boards and a realization that “beer is much better in Hamburg than in San Francisco.”

Hamburg Hackathon collage

Yelp engineers hacking away in our Hamburg office

Hackathon is truly a team effort, with everyone from interns to VPs working on projects to display at the big reveal. After lots of whiteboarding, secretive brainstorming, late night snacks, and one too many Red Bulls, tons of useful, funny and cool projects are unveiled, and the entire engineering team votes to declare winners in each category.

Some people stay business-minded with “unhacks” and set aside the time to do projects that have been on the backburner, like setting up an additional testing framework or running a backlog of code reviews. Others go the creative route. For Hackathon 13, one team imagined what a virtual reality experience may look like for Yelp Monocle. Prepare yourself…for the future.

Dying to get your hands dirty at a Yelp Hackathon? Check out the job openings posted at yelp.com/careers. Apply today, and you may be showing off your project at Yelp Hackathon 14.

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