User story: Inside the journey of the TikTok TechJam champion
Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2025 3:53 am
Earlier this year, TikTok hosted its global TechJam hackathon on Devpost, attracting over 4,400 participants worldwide. The goal? Encourage participants to break boundaries, unleash their creativity, and showcase their coding capabilities as they build solutions for real-world problems or drive innovation.
We had the opportunity to chat with Helen, the first-place winner of this prestigious challenge, to gain insights into her developer journey and the strategies she and her team employed to stand out among thousands of talented participants.
Tell us about yourself and your background in development.
My name is Helen Nguyen, and I'm israel telegram screening currently a senior at Case Western Reserve University, majoring in Computer Science with minors in Banking & Finance and Math. My journey in tech started early—I've been fascinated by computers since I was young, tinkering with hardware and teaching myself basic programming.
At university, I've focused on software engineering, diving deep into algorithms, data structures, and various programming paradigms. I've been fortunate to complete several internships, including a summer at a fintech startup where I worked on developing a mobile payment app, and another at a major tech company where I contributed to their cloud infrastructure team. These experiences have been invaluable in applying my academic knowledge to real-world problems.
This technical background has given me a solid foundation and the confidence to take on challenges like hackathons. It's not just about the coding skills, though. It's also about understanding how to approach problems systematically and work effectively in team environments.
We had the opportunity to chat with Helen, the first-place winner of this prestigious challenge, to gain insights into her developer journey and the strategies she and her team employed to stand out among thousands of talented participants.
Tell us about yourself and your background in development.
My name is Helen Nguyen, and I'm israel telegram screening currently a senior at Case Western Reserve University, majoring in Computer Science with minors in Banking & Finance and Math. My journey in tech started early—I've been fascinated by computers since I was young, tinkering with hardware and teaching myself basic programming.
At university, I've focused on software engineering, diving deep into algorithms, data structures, and various programming paradigms. I've been fortunate to complete several internships, including a summer at a fintech startup where I worked on developing a mobile payment app, and another at a major tech company where I contributed to their cloud infrastructure team. These experiences have been invaluable in applying my academic knowledge to real-world problems.
This technical background has given me a solid foundation and the confidence to take on challenges like hackathons. It's not just about the coding skills, though. It's also about understanding how to approach problems systematically and work effectively in team environments.