What happens when you ask 40 engineers to use their skills and AI tools to transform the experience of new employees joining DWP Digital?
In July 2026, the Engineering Practice Hackathon brought together expertise from across the organisation and gave them just five hours to look at ways onboarding for new starters could be improved.
With support from AI-powered coding tool Kiro, six teams battled against the clock to develop their ideas and prepare a short presentation outlining their chosen approach.
The top three ideas were to be decided by a panel of judges, made up of senior leaders across our Engineering and Delivery communities.
And the winner is…
Solutions presented on the day varied greatly in scope and approach, with ideas ranging from AI-powered bots to personalised onboarding hubs to mentor-matching tools. However only three could stand on the podium:
- Team 2's consolidated onboarding hub came third, impressing judges with its practical approach to bringing onboarding information into a single, personalised experience.
- The ‘OnBoard’ platform developed by Team 3 stood out for its intuitive Kanban-style way of tracking progress while also giving managers view of outstanding tasks.
- But the winner was Team 4's ‘Compass’ solution. The idea stood out for combining practical onboarding support with community-building features, giving new starters a structured pathway while helping them connect with others across the organisation.
“Imagine what we could build if we had more than five hours.”
Reflecting on the day, organiser Dan said: "The quality of the working prototypes, the creativity behind the ideas and the speed at which teams were able to iterate really highlighted how AI can accelerate software development when it's used well."
When asked about the value of the day, Ellen, a DevOps apprentice who led her team, said: "In one day, a group of strangers became a dev team and an idea on a Slack canvas became a working app. That's the real magic of a hackathon. I am already looking forward to the next one."
What’s next?
The Engineering Practice Hackathon showed what's possible when engineers are given the space, time and tools to experiment. Feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, with many praising the chance to collaborate across teams, build new skills and explore what AI-assisted development can achieve.
The winning idea will now be presented to the Engineering senior leadership team, who will look at ways to implement the solution and improve the onboarding process.
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