This hackathon was a send off I'll never forget.
I'm walking to the entrance of the Queens College library at 8:51 AM, about to start Hack Knight, and my phone buzzes. It's my recruiter. Verbal offer for Google.
I don't think she's ever had someone reply "yes" so fast. Gmail said it was still 8:51 AM when I sent my reply.
I had originally planned to use this hackathon strategically. The idea was to build something using only Google technologies (Android, Google Classroom API, Gemini) to help me stand out during team matching. Well, I got my match right before it started, so that plan was out the window. But I still gave my full effort, not for me, but for my teammates. Shaine Lomenario, Eric Salazar, and Rakib Shahid. These guys absolutely deserve jobs in tech. Great team players, willing to learn new technologies (they played along with my silly Google-products-only constraint), and genuinely driven people.
We built TeachSuites, an AI-powered assessment platform that automates exam creation and grading for teachers. The idea came from my teaching background. Teachers spend 40-50% of their time on assessments, and I knew from experience how brutal that grind is. We built it with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose on Android, React on web, Express/TypeScript with PostgreSQL on the backend, and Google Gemini for intelligent grading of open-ended responses. It hooks into Google Classroom so teachers can pull in their classes directly.
The best part? We won Best Education Track!
What a day. Got a verbal offer from Google at 8:51 AM, won a hackathon by midnight. Not a bad Saturday.