Build. Code. Collaborate.

It’s no surprise that engineers have more ideas bouncing around the back of their minds than time to work on them. There are always a million things in the queue that have to happen first. A few months ago, some of my co-engineers and I were venting about it over some beer, and started talking about what we could do. We came up with the idea of a company hack day. It’s a perfect solution: a time to bring these ideas to life, try something new, and move quickly, without everyday deadlines looming.

The real goal of a hack day is to build something, usually from scratch, in a single day. The idea itself doesn’t matter so much—it’s more about getting that idea built so that it can be demoed at the end. The code doesn’t have to be perfect or even elegant...that can be fixed later. But it should be functional to give your idea life. It’s amazing what can be built in a day.

Squarespace held its very first company hack day a few weeks ago on a Saturday in January. The day included about 15 engineers, who all started coding at 10AM. The office had a vibe of quiet intensity—with most of the day spent diligently hacking out code. Of course, there were numerous breaks for food, drink, and discussion. At 10PM the coding stopped and each group demoed what they had built. (This is always my favorite part.) It was incredible to see what everyone had put together in such a short amount of time, and a lot of fun to show off the result of our efforts.

Some developers had worked in groups, and some alone, but everyone tackled an area they were particularly interested in. A few people explored their own wishlist third-party integrations like audio-players, while others had some fun with bookmarklets. And of course, we'd never leave out the hack-day-standard map with real-time data visualization. 

When you think about it, a hack day is an act of creative expression. It’s also an incredible source of new ideas, approaches, and a great learning experience, all of which made it a real boost of energy for the team. For me, it evoked memories of late nights spent in my university’s computer lab, hacking out code with my teammates in a rush to meet our deadline. I always found this rush exciting, especially the sense of moving quickly to bring something from idea to functioning program. I’m glad we got to bring that to Squarespace.

We can’t wait to do it again.

Meet Squarespace: Christa Collins

Christa Collins is the fearless leader of the Squarespace support team. When you ask one of the 12 team members about their boss, you'll hear about her no-nonsense management style, her sharp problem-solving skills, and a lot about her secret prowess as a ninja. 

When Christa started with Squarespace back in December 2006, she was just the third employee added to the company roster. She had recently gotten into blogging and been introduced to Squarespace through some online communities. She took to the platform instantly, and, as things go, couldn't have had better timing. She was moving across the country and looking for a new job just as Anthony was ready to expand Squarespace's customer support efforts. 

"In those days I worked support by myself." But it's no surprise that she's gone from a one-woman team to running a 13-person department, learning the platform inside and out, in order to deliver a wonderful experience to every customer. "It's been an incredible adventure." Her adventure continues, as this month she relocated her family to New York and joined the entire team here in our SoHo office.

Name: Christa Collins

Job title: Director of Customer Care 

What do you *actually* do every day? I manage a team of incredibly talented support staff.  With support growing as much as it has, there are a lot of things to oversee, from reviewing replies and handling customer issues, to scheduling and training staff.  It really depends on the day, but most of the time I'm evaluating and updating shift coverage, maintaining and editing the Squarespace help guides, creating resources for the support team, and always answering tickets.

What's your favorite thing about working here? Our customers are outstanding! I also love that no two days are ever the same, and I'm constantly learning new things. 

What is your background? I got started in retail management at Nordstrom and Gap, and then made the transition to office work at a law firm.  I worked as a legal secretary for several years, and it was during my maternity leave from the law office that I discovered the blogging world and was introduced to Squarespace. 

Aside from Squarespace, what is your favorite online tool/resource? I can't live without Skitch, and recently discovered Divvy (thanks Tom!). 

Favorite blogs? Not Martha, Dooce, and Julie Ree.  

What were the last 5 songs played on your iPod? "Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)" by Florence + The Machine, "Find Love" by NLX, "We Used to Wait" by Arcade Fire, "No Signs of Pain" by Azure Ray, "Seether" by Veruca Salt.  

What was the last movie you saw? Let Me In, adapted from the Swedish book Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. 

What do you do for fun outside of Squarespace? I read. A lot. Probably a sickening amount. I'm pretty crafty, so I crochet and knit, but sewing is really my passion.    

Tell me 5 fun facts about yourself. 

• My husband and I have 4 daughters, ranging in ages from 17 months to 12 years old.
• I think spiders are disgusting.
• My thumbs are double-jointed.
• I was born on Mother's Day.
• I can't function without coffee. 

If you could pick one superpower, invisibility or flying, which would you pick? Why? I'd have to say flying, which is funny because I'm scared of heights. But the ability to flit to Cancun at a moment's notice? Superpower indeed.

You can find Christa online on Twitter: @daphne. 

Meet Squarespace: Michael Heilemann

One of our newest imports, Michael Heilemann, made the big move across the Atlantic to join the Squarespace team just a few months ago. His beautiful interface work on other platforms, most notably WordPress and Habari, had him in high demand, and caught the attention of Anthony Casalena. Michael flew to New York to meet the Squarespace development team and voila -- he fell in love. “Squarespace was a force to be reckoned with,” he says, “and a collection of people the likes of which you’d be lucky to meet in passing, if at all." Denmark didn’t have a chance.

This past November Michael and his wife locked up their apartment in Copenhagen and arrived in New York City with just enough belongings to fit into the trunk of a taxi cab. He described the decision as, “simultaneously one of the hardest and one of the easiest decisions I ever had to make.” Sure there were the comforts of home, but more appealing to Michael was the chance to try something entirely new. The appeal of life within the most iconic skyline in the world didn’t hurt either.

Name: Michael Heilemann

Job title: User Interface Director

What do you actually do every day? I mostly raid the fridge, rearrange chairs before hours, and then when I can't put it off any longer, I spend the rest of the day in the company of TextMate and Safari, hammering out HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

What is your background? I was born and raised in Denmark, where I started out doing web design in the dot com days. Then relegated it to intense-hobby level with years of open source development -- from the earliest days of WordPress through Habari and various other projects -- while I was a game developer (first as a graphics artist, then as a level designer). Most recently I had my own company doing web and interface design and consulting.

Favorite thing about working at Squarespace: The passionate progressive thinking.

Aside from Squarespace, what is your favorite online tool/resource? Instapaper and CloudApp.

Favorite blogs: Daring Fireball, Adactio, Ignore The Code, Longform, Motel de Moka.com, Skiffy, The Art of the Title Sequence, The Daily What, 5 by 5.

Who do you admire and why? Stanley Kubrick. His work is unrivaled, insightful, mysterious and true.

Last 5 songs played on your iPod? Well, I've been listening to Nine Inch Nails all morning, but... 

• “Telegraph Road” by Dire Straits
• “No Leaf Clover” by Metallica
• “Mama” by Genesis
• “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears.

What do you do for fun? I love cinema and tend to either watch a lot of movies (and TV shows), often Star Wars, which somehow became my speciality. I work on my own web projects from time to time, play games, and I love photography. I hope to do more of it as the weather improves.

5 fun facts about yourself:

• I used to have shoulder-length hair. Now I'm all but bald. Damn you genes.
• I studied Computer Arts in Dundee, Scotland, but didn't pick up Scottish.
• I can't sleep on airplanes.
• I can be a pretty mean Team Fortress 2 soldier ("Screamin' eagles!").
• I didn't start drinking coffee until about a year ago. 

If you could pick one superpower, invisibility or flying, which would you pick? Why? Invisibility. The whole flying scenario is fraught with danger and unknowns. Is it even legal? What would the government do when they found out that I was flying around unaided? I'm sure the US Customs and Border Protection Agency would have a thing or two to say about that. And furthermore, I think a lot of people hear "flying" and equate it to being Superman, but it's just flying, not invincibility or even temperature resistance (say hello to Mr. Wind Chill). There're simply too many unknowns, whereas with invisibility you know what you're getting.

Stay in touch with Michael via his personal blog, Binary Bonsai, or on Twitter @Heilemann. He also has an account just for sharing his Instapaper favorites, called @Heileshare.

Meet Squarespace: Jamie Tsao

Director of Engineering Jamie Tsao is always up for an adventure. However, he describes his adventure of deciding to move to New York City to join the Squarespace team "a whirlwind of excitement, anxiety, and stress."

In eight short weeks, he and his wife Ranee had to contend with quitting their jobs, subletting their apartment, finding an apartment while still in San Francisco, and packing up their entire lives in order to move across the country and start over. Despite all the insanity, Jamie and Ranee managed to arrive in New York in style. Thanks to his sister who worked for the airline, they were both upgraded to first class on their momentus trip. For Jamie, this was a clear sign he had made the right decision.

He joined Squarespace in August 2009.

Name: Jamie Tsao

Job Title: Director of Engineering

What do you actually do every day? As Director of Engineering, I lead a team of engineers, deploy new code on a weekly basis, and keep Squarespace up and running. Most recently, I re-architected our backend integration with Twitter by switching to their Streaming API. In addition to improving resource efficiency, our Twitter widgets now display tweets in real-time.

What is your background? I'm originally from California (born and raised).  I got a late start on computers - I didn't actually touch one until I was in college at Berkeley (Go Bears!). My fascination for software was born immediately after taking my first computer science course (CS3), and I guess the rest is history.

Who do you admire and why? My mother, because she was the most positive person I knew. My attitude towards life is heavily influenced by her.

Favorite thing about working at Squarespace: Without a doubt the privilege of working with our strong Engineering team. Oh, and the free lunches are nice too.

What do you do for fun outside of work? Photography, Black Ops, online poker, rooting for my Bay Area sports team, and exploring this wonderful city.

Top blogs in your RSS reader? To be honest, I'm not an avid blog reader but I do peruse a few tech blogs: TechCrunch, Mashable, Martin Fowler, etc.

Last 5 songs played on your iPod? Eminem's Recovery album, my favorite song being "No Love" featuring Lil Wayne.

5 fun facts about yourself:

• I won a week-long trip & entry into a poker tournament in Aruba via an online poker site.
• I played an extra in the 2nd Matrix movie, The Matrix Reloaded.
• Because of my name, I'm often mistaken as spanish or a girl.
• I love McDonald's Filet-O-Fish.
• I got married in Hawaii.

If you could pick one superpower, invisibility or flying, which would you pick? Why?

Definitely flying, because then I could do cool stuff like save the world. Being invisible only seems useful for criminal activities. And I ain't no criminal.

Stay in touch with Jamie via his personal blog at JamieTsao.com or on Twitter @eimajination.

Meet Squarespace: Stephen Parker

Senior Designer Stephen Parker doesn't take no for an answer - he wanted to work on the Squarespace design team badly. “I knew this job was going to be mine one day. I just had no idea how or when."

Stephen always knew his ultimate goal, even while freelancing for Squarespace for several years (designing templates for version 5) and subsequently joining our support team. Throughout, he worked hard at cultivating a relationship with Creative Director Tyler Thompson. Conversations between them often went something like this:

Stephen: So, when are you going to hire me? I'm dying to come and work with you guys.

Tyler: Dude, you're not ready. Go read about color theory.

Back and forth they went, each time Tyler pushing Stephen a bit further along on his creative journey. All along the way, Parker refused to give up.

As Tyler tells it:

Stephen asked for a design job at Squarespace 3 times and each time I said no, but gave him my specific reasons. First I asked him to work on color and spacing. I suggested some reading and designs and designers to study and follow. Later his designs lacked the final polish. He continued to study and always pushed himself to be a better designer. I started seeing his work on Dribbble and the Squarespace forum, and they were really, really good. He knew our brand inside and out, knew the system as well as anyone (from working support), and had really blossomed into a damn good designer.

Needless to say, Stephen's "stubbornness" finally paid off when he moved to New York and officially joined the Squarespace design team full-time in December of 2010.

Name: Stephen Parker

Position: Senior Designer

What do you actually do every day? Mostly I'm in Photoshop designing something new, building pages on Squarespace, or making tweaks to something that already exists. I'm responsible for the majority of creative assets that go out for the current version of our system. So, that includes maintenance and expansion of our front site, advertisements, direction for promo videos, art for blog posts, press kits, email newsletters, landing pages, etc.

What is your background? I'm an artist. I grew up cooking professionally in restaurants, and I've always enjoyed creating things with my hands. For me, art is mostly crafting in a series of rotating mediums; paint, food, music, design, etc.

Favorite thing about working at Squarespace? Definitely the cast. Squarespace is filled with an unbelievable collection of brilliant people.

Who do you admire and why? Kenya Hara is the Art Director for Muji. He has great thoughts on "memory" and "emptiness". Tyler Thompson, my boss, is the most visually intelligent person that I know.

Top 3 Blogs in your RSS reader?

• Signal vs. Noise
• Effed in Park Slope
• Synaptic Stimuli

Last 5 Songs played on your iPod?

• River of Brake Lights -- Julian Casablancas
• Queen Bitch -- David Bowie
• Holy Thursday -- David Axelrod
• Veridis Quo -- Daft Punk
• Plasticities -- Andrew Bird

5 Fun facts about yourself?

• I play stringed instruments.
• I'm a chef for the royal family of Dubai.
• My parents are both social workers.
• I'm an over-the-roll folder.
• I have a 12-year-old daughter who is much smarter than me.

Stay in touch with Stephen! He's taking questions over on his blog, Hi Stephen, or you can follow him on Twitter @stephen_parker.