Code Quality Hackathon 2022

Hackathons as an Innovation tool.

When it comes to innovation, people usually think of developing a digital product or integrating a new service, but it’s never just about these. Everything that improves a process or makes the experience offered more enjoyable is actually within the scope of innovation activities. There are some methods and tools used for this purpose, the place and method of application may vary, but the goal is clear, to be able to diversify the contribution offered.

The most fun of innovation tool is hackathons. In a situation where time, space, and other important resources are limited by various constraints, developers perform at their best for a goal and can go beyond their performance at other times. In fact, some of them can work miracles. As the terminal team, we organize hackathons every year and we enjoy the contribution these activities make to our processes.

So what is the Code Quality Hackathon?

However, this year there was a difference. We held an internal hackathon for the first time. Taking the expertise of our DevOps team with us, we designed the “Code Quality Hackathon” event for Turkish Airlines Technology employees and held it at our Libadiye campus on May 13-14-15, 2022.

With every activity in this event, it served the following purposes.

1. To Improve code quality in our existing applications and to increase unit testing awareness.
2. To increase communication between individuals and teams who have been away from each other during the pandemic period and to strengthen relationship between them.
3. To contribute to employee engagement through new office and hackathon activities

What was included in the Hackathon?

CQH basically consists of 2 parts.

1. Code Contest: Developers competed in 2 categories. Code Quality Issues and Unit Testing. You can review the scope and details of these categories in the section on the hackathon page.
2. Social Activities: There was not only coding, but also various social activities. Refreshments for 2 days, playstation, table tennis, paper airplane, table football tournaments, award-winning trivia and an Ask Me Anything event with our general manager Kerem Kızıltunc.

What happened on the first day?

On Friday, May 13, 2022, at 08:00, the participants arrived at Turkish Airlines Technology Libadiye campus. They grabbed their badges and hackathon kits and went into the conference room for the opening. The event officially started with the opening speeches of Digital Innovation Lead Murat Can Demir, Software Quality Manager Erman Doğan and Customer Solutions Senior Vice President Serdar Gürbüz and later the participants went to the competition area.

Employees wrote codes throughout the day and benefited from the social facilities of the campus. In the evening, They attended the “Ask Me Anything” event with Turkish Airlines Technology General Manager Dr. Kerem Kızıltunç. A pleasant conversation took place with questions about both personal and company future.

You can find the video summarizing the first day of the hackathon below.

What happened on the second day?

The second day was the day when the teams gave their full concentration to the code repos and solved problems almost non-stop. In fact, the focus was so high that the organization team decided to cancel the “speed networking” event in order not to spoil this energy. At the end of the day, the Trivia event was held using Kahoot and Hilal Aşağıçayır came first with her high performance and won a surprise award.

You can find the video summarizing the second day of the hackathon below.

What happened on the third day?

The competitive environment of the second day lasted until the morning of the third day, and the ambitious teams finished the last miles by sprinting without slowing down. In the morning, the coding was completed with the first rays of the sun. As of 09:00 in the morning, the five teams that achieved the best scores in both categories were announced and invited to the presentation in the conference hall.

Teams are;

1. Aileron
2. COMIS DEV
3. GDC
4. Hürkuş
5. Our First Born
6. QC Team
7. Satış Çözümleri
8. Türk Java Yolları
9. Uçuş Operasyon
10. Wild Goose Team

In their presentations, they talked about the following topics. The presentations went like retro meetings at the end of the sprint.

1. Introduction of Team Members
2. Which repos were selected? Why?
3. How much progress has been made?
4. What problems did they have? How was the solution achieved?
5. Has a new method/approach been demonstrated?
6. What was experienced? Lessons learned?

The teams shared their experiences during the competition with all the participants. They contributed to the creation of a beneficial and enjoyable environment. The presentations were voted by all the participants and a team won the special jury award in addition to the category champions.

After the presentations, the award ceremony started and the individuals and teams that showed high performance during the hackathon received their awards. After the award ceremony, all teams took souvenir photos and visualized their memories of the hackathon.

You can find the video summarizing the last day of the hackathon below.

CHAMPIONS 🙂 

The winners of the 48-hour challenge were as follows;

While the winners of the trivia  and jury special awards won smart wristbands, …

The category winners won electric scooters, runners-up for smart watches and third place for wireless headphones.

Kahoot Trivia Winner:

Hilal Aşağıçayır from Advanced Analytics and Customer Data Management

Special Jury Award Winner: Turk Java Yolları

Hasan Özgilik and Fatih Yavuz

Code Quality Issues Category Winners;

1. Satış Çözümleri: Raşit Altun, Selman Gün, İsa Eş, Onur Palaz
2. GDC: Eyüp Okumuş, Olcay Bahtiyar, Hatice Kübra Tellioğlu, Ayşe Nur Ulu Turmuş
3. QC Team: Nihat Kuzu, Muhammed Sıddık Yılmaz, Emirhan Sancak, Tuğba Kocaman

Unit Test Category Winners;

1. Our First Born: Gökhan Memiş, Abidin Onur Ciner, Mehmet Karakaya, Fatih Çınar
2. Comis Dev: Nurullah Yılmaz, Elif Kurt, Baran Ersin Özilhan, Elif Mısır
3. Wild Goose Team: Barış Erden, Burak Kabasakal, Ömer Uzel, Kutay Mehmet Özkoç

Code Quality Hackathon by Numbers

• 25 Teams and 89 People participated
• Teams generally chose to participate with the maximum number of members allowed. Average team size was 3.56 (2×2, 7×3, 16×4)
• 82 of the participants were software developers and 7 were business analysts.
• 48 Hours of code written.
• 300+ liters of tea & coffee consumed
• 16 thousand security issues solved
• 52 thousand code smells issues were solved.
• 45 thousand lines of new unit test written
• Teams solved 25 issues per minute.
• The fastest team solved 10 issues per minute.

In summary;

The feedback received in the post-hackathon surveys confirmed that the hackathon served its purpose. Everyone had a productive and enjoyable weekend and dispersed to their homes. The teams were successful by finding practical solutions to the problems they faced during the hackathon.

As the Terminal team, we share the wishes of the participants and hope to see you again next year, and this is how we conclude the Code Quality Hackathon event 🙂