Claude Day: What happened when 39 teams let non-engineers drive

Claude Day at WorkOS was an internal hackathon designed to empower non-technical team members by having them lead in tool development, assisted by technical counterparts with minimal setup time, thanks to pre-built scaffolding. The event paired 39 teams, each consisting of a developer, a non-technical teammate, and an AI engineer, to create AI-driven internal tools that addressed real work challenges, resulting in a diverse range of practical applications like Slack message filters and customer activity dashboards. The hackathon's success was attributed to the strategic decision to minimize initial technical barriers and emphasize non-engineers' problem-solving roles, which fostered a sense of ownership and learning, particularly in understanding technical stacks and utilizing AI tools like Claude effectively. Participants learned valuable lessons, such as the importance of persistence, rethinking coding as self-service tool building, and leveraging AI as a translator, ultimately leading to a company-wide realization of their capability to develop functional tools.