Application Process

Our Academy Member, Software Developer, and Product Designer applications for Fall 2021 is now open! We will only be recruiting for these roles at this time. More information on roles and recruitment can be found on our official Notion page. If you would like application reminders or want to stay updated with our recruitment timeline, feel free to fill out our Interest Form!

A lot of classwork is theoretical. You’re given a contrived problem, and then you solve it. At Hack4Impact, you get to build a product from the ground up. Being exposed to building something from scratch is a great experience as a student.

Alex Wu, '16

Frequently Asked Questions

Team: Work on a team of 6-8 students led by a PM and tech lead

Build: Develop the product throughout the semester (~12 weeks)

Ship: Deliver the final product to the nonprofit client!

Community: Join an organization with a strong focus on mentorship and social community events

Nope! Mentorship is a core value of our organization so we are always looking to take less experienced developers as long as you are willing to put in the time and have the passion to learn. You will have a tight feedback loop with your project leads along with experienced members on your team to ensure your success and project’s success in-order to benefit the nonprofit your team is working with.

We would love to accept all of our good candidates, but from our perspective, this is what we see.

  • We can’t work with all the non-profits in the world, because the quality of work and projects is just not scalable. We need to be incredibly selective with our leads because any risk of wasting an entire six months of time would ultimately be counterproductive for both our clients and students.
  • We can’t have enormous teams because productivity inherently goes down, and work becomes less meaningful if anyone is tasked with completing a miniscule part of the project. On top of that, there are physical limits on the number of groups we can meet in person.
  • We can only interview a fixed number of candidates, no matter how many good ones apply. We can only take as many candidates as our projects leads can support along with the scope of the projects itself. We want to take everyone who is qualified and we want to take on more projects, but for the reasons above, we just can’t.
That being said, we are looking into ways we can accommodate for members in the future such as holding more external events and tech talks, expanding our interview process to interview more candidates, and increasing our training program for more Product Managers/Technical Leads to take on more projects but maintain the high quality work we are know for.

Nope, only Product Designer applicants have a take-home to complete.

First Invite Decisions: Tuesday, August 31

First Round interviews [INVITE ONLY]: Wednesday, September 1 - Thursday, September 2

Second Invite Decisions & Product Designer Take-Home Released: Friday, September 3

Social Round [SECOND INVITE ONLY]: Saturday, September 4

(Software Developers/Academy Members) Final Round Interviews [SECOND INVITE ONLY]: Tuesday, September 7 - Wednesday, September 8

(Product Designers) Final Round Interviews [SECOND INVITE ONLY]: Saturday, September 11 (Take-Home due Thursday, September 9)

Come to our Info Night on Wednesday, August 25 at 6:30 PM CDT! We will be updating our social media with the exact location and more details. We will also be livestreaming this event on FacebookYou can also meet us at Quad Day (Sunday, August 22 from 12-4 PM) and E-Night (Sunday, August 29 from 3-6 PM). All of these are opportunities to meet H4I members in-person and learn more about how you can get involved. Feel free to email us at uiuc@hack4impact.org with any questions or concerns you may have.