Last month in July 2025, I participated in freeCodeCamp's 2025 Summer Hackathon, which took place in the freeCodeCamp Discord server throughout July. I applied in June, and then got selected as a participant in the hackathon.
I applied to participate because I wanted to gain more experience in building programming projects. I started my journey to teach myself web development beyond a hobby with freeCodeCamp, and July happens to be my birth month as well, so it is meaningful to me to gain the opportunity to participate in freeCodeCamp’s hackathon. It helps that their community is queer-inclusive too, with the community manager, Naomi Carrigan, being transfeminine herself. This freeCodeCamp hackathon was not my first time participating in a team software project, but it was my first time participating in an event that officially calls itself a hackathon.
Hackathon participants were placed in different groups based on time zones, and each team was assigned with different full-stack web app projects with a specific theme. My team consisted of people based in Asia, while our project is a daily affirmation platform named DailyDose.
I volunteered to manage our team project's front end since that is my speciality, though I also contributed to our decision to build our project with Flask since a few of us, myself included, have had experience with it. In addition, as there were a few members in my team were beginners to coding and programming, so with Flask being based on Python, a beginner-friendly programming language, and the Jinja template engine being essentially HTML with Python sprinkled in, we hoped to choose to build in a tech stack that is approachable to programming beginners. I also encouraged the use of vanilla CSS and JavaScript rather than using frameworks because I am a firm believer in learning the fundamentals. Furthermore, through my hackathon team's project, I got introduced to uv, a Python package manager, which was what we used to run our Flask project.
All hackathon team's projects went into code freeze on July 28, coincidentally my birthday, and each team has been scheduled to present our projects to Naomi, the freeCodeCamp community manager and host of this hackathon, in August, then Naomi will present our hackathon projects to the rest of the freeCodeCamp community.
The main lesson I learned from being the front end leader of my hackathon team project is that being a project manager means you will likely spend as much time in organising and overseeing your team and project as writing code. I contributed a fair amount of code to our project, but I also spend much time in reviewing teammates' pull requests, as well as planning and assigning tasks to teammates. Occasionally when I reviewed teammates' pull requests, I also offered suggestions for improving their code based on web standards such as web accessibility.
My team could not manage to finish everything we planned to do before the hackathon's code freeze in late July, but we managed to implement the main features of our project. Given the fact that we work on this project while juggling with other things in our daily life, we were glad to have done our project as much as we could. The primary goal of this hackathon is to learn about working on a software project in a team, as being a software developer is not just about coding skills, but also problem-solving skills, organisation skills, and in group projects, communication skills.
On 9 August 2025 morning in my time zone, my hackathon team presented our work with Naomi, and it went well. Naomi was impressed by how our project turned out, especially for one that was developed within four weeks in our spare time.
Some of my team, myself included, are interested in continue to work on our project to improve it, and since the hackathon channels in freeCodeCamp's Discord server will be removed, my team has created our own private Discord server to continue our collaboration in our project.
While we do not get paid for participating in the hackathon, Naomi leaves personal recommendations on LinkedIn for every participant who managed to commit to the hackathon throughout July. Here is Naomi's recommendation for me on LinkedIn:
I had the absolute pleasure of working with Helen Chong during our month-long hackathon, where they consistently impressed me with their dedication, technical growth, and collaborative spirit.
From the start, Helen dove into the challenge with enthusiasm, applying their skills in HTML, Jinja, CSS, Flask, and Markdown to build real, impactful solutions. Whether working independently or as part of a team, they brought thoughtful ideas, clear communication, and a passion for learning that elevated everyone around them.
The value of Helen's contributions are immeasurable. Throughout the event, they took on the crucial role of managing the project's front end, not only writing high-quality code but also conducting thorough reviews of teammates' pull requests. Their organizational skills and attention to detail helped keep the team aligned and the project moving forward smoothly.
By the end of the hackathon, Helen had delivered an outstanding project while demonstrating exceptional leadership in front-end management. More than the final product, what stood out was their journey—embracing feedback, overcoming obstacles, and supporting others along the way. Helen grew tremendously as a developer by learning that being successful in tech extends far beyond coding skills to include project organization and team management.
I wholeheartedly recommend Helen Chong for any opportunity in tech. They bring not just technical ability, but the kind of energy and curiosity that makes any team stronger.
You can view my hackathon team's project DailyDose's repository on GitHub.