One of the best experiences till date that I can remember is my hackathon and internship offer opportunity at JP Morgan Chase this year. Sometimes you wonder whether you will get through the thing or not - having self-doubts, doubtful thoughts about your skills and abilities, lots of hurdles and setbacks - but if you fight till the end believing in yourself, then in the end everything will feel worth it, that I learned from the experience.

Let’s first start with the technical aspects, covering the selection process and the steps I went through.

The selection process

It all started when the training and placement cell of my college dropped a notification that JPMC was going to hire interns through Code for Good. At that time, I was completely unaware of what this program was, so I googled the hiring process and got to know that it was going to be a great opportunity. For this, the initial criteria were to belong to the Computer Science or Information Technology branch, and the CGPA up to that point had to be greater than 8.5. It was a great moment for me because I had maintained my CGPA above 9.

So yeah, CGPA matters in a lot of cases. After that, I updated my resume and applied for the next process.

Resume selection and Online Assessment

After the application window closed, the resume screening round happened, and this step is very crucial because if you have good skills but not a good resume, then you won’t even get the chance to show your skills. So it’s very important to have a good resume with solid projects to get through the first step. After that, I received a mail regarding the online assessment.

It consisted of 2 DSA questions of LeetCode easy and medium level. If you are practicing DSA or doing good development with a strong understanding, then you will cross this step easily.

HireVue interview round

After getting selected in the online assessment, I received a mail to attempt the HireVue AI interview. It was very new to me to give this type of interview. In this round, you will get 2 HR or managerial questions which you have to answer within 2 minutes while recording yourself, and then submit the response. You will get only 2 attempts to submit your answer.

For example, one of my questions was: “If you are participating in a hackathon or a group project and some misunderstanding happens within your team and you are running out of time, how will you handle that situation?”

THE CODE FOR GOOD

After all these processes and a long wait of 2 months, finally on May 17th at around 10 AM, I got the mail saying that I was selected to participate in the Code for Good hackathon at the JPMC office. Getting such good news in the morning just feels like wow. We had three location options to choose from — Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.

Although we had requested Bangalore, we got the Mumbai location to participate in CFG on the 7th and 8th of June. It was very sudden for us because we didn’t have much time to prepare, but as I said, everything happens for a reason — which I realized afterwards.

Within the timeframe, we booked our flight tickets (travel was reimbursed) and went through the guiding sessions from the officials. Three days before the hackathon, I received the list of students who were going to be my teammates for the event. Since we didn’t have much time, I searched for them on LinkedIn and connected with them, and very soon I created a WhatsApp group so we could communicate easily.

We scheduled a meeting and got to know each other — everyone’s tech stack and strengths in coding. This was a very important step because in a hackathon, teamwork is everything, and for that, it’s crucial to know each other’s strengths.

The horrible experience just before the hackathon

Life is always like a roller coaster — sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down, and to experience the high moments, you have to get through the low ones. Something similar happened to me just 15 hours before the hackathon.

On 6th June, my college friends and I landed in Mumbai around 3 PM, went to our hotel room, and took some rest. That evening, I had an important meeting call scheduled. I opened my laptop — and nothing. The laptop I had brought for the hackathon didn’t turn on. It was around 7 PM. I tried multiple times, trying every possible thing I could think of to turn it on, but nothing worked. I attended the call through my phone and kept asking my seniors and my sister about possible things I could try. By then, it was already 8:30.

I took the laptop and went on the roads of Mumbai searching for a repair shop. I kept checking the maps for the nearest shop, running in a rush, and bad thoughts started hitting me — why did this happen right before the hackathon? Before coming here, my laptop had never shown a single problem. One shop said they needed to keep the laptop and would check it tomorrow, as it seemed like the display was broken. But that wasn’t suitable for me, so I took the laptop and tried going to other shops. During that time, I explained everything to my sister, and she talked to her friends in Mumbai. One of her friends, Rohan bhaiya, said he would come the next morning and give me his laptop. I was a little calm, but still trying to fix mine because I was comfortable with my own system for coding — otherwise I’d have to do a lot of configurations on a new laptop.

Suddenly, I found a shop on the map located deep inside a locality, in an industrial estate building. It was already around 10–10:30 PM, and the whole place looked shut, but to my surprise, the laptop repair shop was still open. I explained the problem, and they fixed my laptop within 15–20 minutes. As I was leaving, I thanked them, and they told me, “You’re very lucky you reached our shop. We don’t deal with retail repairs, only with companies, and we usually close by 10. Today, because of some pending work, we stayed back— and we were about to close just before you arrived.”

At that moment, it hit me hard that sometimes the universe really aligns everything for you when you truly need it.

The D-Day

Finally, I reached the JPMC office in Mumbai, located in Goregaon. Overwhelmed by the office environment and the facilities, I prepared myself for the hackathon and connected with students from different colleges and different states. My teammates arrived, our laptops got checked and verified, we got the T-shirts and hoodies, received our IDs for the event, grabbed some snacks, and then the event officially started. All the NGOs explained their problem statements, and we got SpacECE INDIA. We met our mentor Harshal Vakil sir, discussed how to proceed further, and began designing the solution with him and within our team.

After some time, we met our other two mentors — Shalini Sharma ma’am and Sachin Gadagi sir. They were just awesome. They guided us even at 2 AM when we were stuck, completely unable to get anything working. But after their guidance, everything became clear, and within 2–3 hours, our MVP was ready. During the hackathon, we enjoyed a lot of food (Code for Good turned into “code for food” — and literally, the food was just awesome), dance sessions, refreshments, goodies, unlimited snacks, mentorship sessions, and a whole lot more. We submitted our solution around 11 in the morning, and in the rush, we even forgot to have breakfast.

The first round of presentations happened — we explained our solution to the jury, and they looked genuinely impressed. After lunch, the final round began. Out of 9 teams working on the same problem statement, only 2 made it to the finals to present in front of everyone. We got selected, presented our solution, and we were confident that our work truly stood out.

And finally, everything went well — and congratulations started pouring in from everywhere.

The Takeaways

It was truly possible because of my wonderful team and our mentors. It was not easy to be selected from 60,000+ applicants in Code for Good, win the hackathon, and then grab the internship offer (yes, after 2 months I received the mail that I’m selected for the Summer Internship 2026 at JPMC). But if you believe in yourself, have faith in your abilities, and stay confident in your skills, then no one can stop you — and that’s exactly what I experienced through everything that happened with me.

In the end, this entire journey taught me something priceless — opportunities come to those who stay prepared, stay patient, and keep moving even when things seem to fall apart. From resume shortlisting, online rounds, unexpected setbacks, midnight debugging, teamwork, mentorship, and finally the thrill of winning — every moment shaped me, strengthened me, and reminded me that persistence always pays off.

This experience was not just a hackathon; it was a lesson in trust, teamwork, belief, and resilience. And looking back now, I can say with a full heart — every struggle, every doubt, and every late-night effort was worth it.

By: K Suman Patra