Minasan, Konnichiwa! 👋🏻

So I got a lot to share since the last edition of Life at Hashnode 😊

🎉 But most exciting news first!

The Hashnode Team pushed a massive update. My duty as a human is to save you from not missing out on amazing new blogs. 👇🏻

These amazing performance scores became possible with some code, sweat, and magic by Hashnode Dev Team. 💜 A detailed blog with more tech insights about this upgrade will be out soon.

🥳 Other super cool things that have been happening would include -

• The Mobile App is getting launched real soon.
• There were brain-blowing project submissions for the HarperDB and Clerk Hackathon. You should definitely check out the projects. They are super inspiring.
• Twitter Spaces hosted by Sam Sycamore are going crazy good! You can follow him on Twitter or join our Discord channel to keep yourself updated with the schedule of these Twitter Spaces.
• Also, Catalin Pit have been doing amazing power-packed sessions on the Hashnode Podcast
• We recently announced the Auth0 x Hashnode Hackathon, $10K USD prizes. Participate before Aug 31st.

Apart from these cool updates about Hashnode and the people of Hashnode, I want to share that I received a text about this series from one of the active readers 👇🏻

So I would love to introduce you all to some new faces at Hashnode. 😊

🏄🏻‍♂️ Meet Sam!

I asked Sam Sycamore some questions, so you get to know him better! 🌟

😄 Can you quickly Introduce your colleague Guru?

I don't know if I'm qualified to do that yet! I actually just got to meet with Guru one-on-one for the first time this week. He and I recently joined the team as founders of our departments, and we've both been tucked away in our respective corners laying the foundations and such. I get the impression that he is a very skilled designer. I got a sneak peek at his redesign of our homepage, and I'm very excited for it to launch!

🚂 How's your journey to Hashnode been?

It's been a wild ride, but I couldn't be happier to have landed with this company. I come from a very nontraditional, non-tech background -- I spent many years hustling as a freelance writer while working construction jobs to make ends meet. I never could've guessed that my experience as a writer would be valuable in the tech industry.

🔆 What does a typical day at work looks like for you?

I live in a rural area where it's tough to get reliable internet, so I work out of a coworking space in my town. Lately, I've been starting my days around 7 am -- I live in California, but the rest of our team is in India and Europe, so I've found that if I can drag myself out of bed early enough, I can catch some of my coworkers before they go to sleep. The first half of my day is usually correspondence, calls, catching up on emails, and coordinating with folks on various projects. I like to take a very long lunch break and get in a workout at the gym around midday. When I come back to my desk for the last few hours, that's when I do most of my writing and content creation. I try to wrap up by 4 pm most days.

🤩 What's the most exciting thing you are working on currently at Hashnode?

I've had so much fun with our weekly Twitter Spaces! I used to host a podcast a few years back, and this feels like an upgrade -- the conversations are more exciting, and it takes waaaay less work to make these happen! Plus, the feedback has been very encouraging. Right now, they are very ephemeral experiences. Still, I'm slowly working out a sort of "content pipeline" to get our discussions from Twitter out to all of the major platforms in a streamlined fashion. Only so many hours in the day, but I can't wait to get rolling with this.

😕 What's the part of your job you don't like much?

Ugh, I am so bad at replying to emails on time. I was out sick this past Monday, and I returned to 30+ emails on Tuesday and 7 meetings on Wednesday. Needless to say, I didn't get much else done on those days!

🥇 What was the ONE thing that made you choose Hashnode?

The flexible work schedule is what sold me to the company. I was quite content as a freelancer in the months before Hashnode noticed me, and I would not have moved on from that for just any job opportunity. But at Hashnode we're fully remote, I can work any days and any hours I want, and I can take as much time off as I need, anytime I need it. That kind of freedom was the number one reason why I preferred being a freelancer over holding down a conventional job. With that obstacle out the window, I couldn't say no.

🎳 What would be the one thing according to you that makes Hashnode Team different from other teams?

I absolutely love working for an international company. It certainly comes with its own set of challenges, but the pros far outweigh the cons, in my opinion. It's fun being the only American on the crew! For now, anyway. As a creator, I really appreciate the high diversity of perspectives that Hashnode has intentionally cultivated. My work -- and the company's output -- is significantly stronger as a result.

💜 What's the best moment you experienced from your joining till now?

Early in July, I hosted a Twitter Space where I invited several people from a small Slack group I'm a part of called Code Share Grow to discuss community building. It's such a joy for me to lift my people with me, and the turnout for that talk was enormous!

🧑🏻‍💻 Can we get a sneak peek of your workstation?

Totally! I'll let you scope out my coworking space as well as the desk that I recently built for myself at home. It looks funky, but it is made with salvaged fence wood, and it was designed to be a hybrid standing & floor-sitting desk. So it has multiple levels you can work at.

🤝 What would be the ONE advice you will give to someone exploring a role in Content Strategy at Hashnode or some other place?

This is a career path that I honestly did not know was available to me as a writer. I love that it incorporates basically every kind of writing: creative, technical, educational, copywriting & marketing, and beyond. To succeed in this area, you need to be proficient as both a creator and a marketer. I know a lot of creative folks cringe at the idea of learning marketing -- I avoided it like the plague for years because "my work speaks for itself!" (it doesn't) -- but it's the most surefire way to make good money with your creative skills. The "Call To Action" is your new best friend, and you'll crush this gig if you master it.

⛹🏻 And, this is Guru!

And his answers 👇🏻

🤾🏻‍♂️ Can you quickly Introduce your colleague Sam?

I haven’t interacted much with sam, But I get to see a lot of his efforts in Hashnode. Recently I had a conversation with Sam, and he’s really cool and composed. Looking forward to learning a lot from Sam.

🚞 How's your journey to Hashnode has been?

I found Hashnode a supportive place to take the initiative and hack on things I am passionate about. The support from the team was exceptional — it motivated me to conceptualize more exciting ideas to implement.

🌱 What does a typical day at work looks like for you?

My day as a product designer involves understanding the product I’m creating, communicating a point of view, considering external factors that my decision will affect, or defining (crafting) a vision of how something looks, feels, and operates. This can be done as part of a team, individually, depending on the product/task involved.

😍 What's the most exciting thing you are working on currently at Hashnode?

• Currently, I’m building Hashnode Design System, and a couple of interesting updates are coming up.

😗 What's the part of your job you don't like much?

Nothing so far.

🤸🏻‍♂️ What was the ONE thing that made you choose Hashnode?

Diversity and culture.

📌 What would be the one thing according to you that makes Hashnode Team different from other teams?

Aside from being provided with the opportunity to learn about the product, Hashnode has a spectacular team full of creative energies.

🤗 What's the best moment you experienced from your joining till now?

While receiving Hashnode Swag Kit

🧑🏻‍🔬 Can we get a sneak peek of your workstation?




💬 What would be the ONE advice you will give to someone exploring a role in Design at Hashnode or some other place?

Hashnode has an excellent work culture, and every day, I’m learning from everyone on the team. Hashnode is a diverse company with great mindsets. The design team is growing, which allows designers to contribute more and learn from that.

These two are amazing, aren't they? 🤩

You can find them here: Sam Sycamore and Guru.

It's your chance to become part of this awesome team 🥳

We are hiring across different roles at Hashnode.

Head over to the Careers Page and send in your application, TODAY!

That's all for today folks! See you in the next edition. Till then keep pinging me with ideas about what would like to read about next. 👋🏻