Application Process

Our applications open at the start of each Fall semester. Keep an eye out on our Facebook page to see when applications open!

A lot of classwork at McGill is super theoretical. The difference between industry and schoolwork is massive, and we want to help students bridge that gap. At Hack4Impact, you get to build a project from the ground up. Being exposed to building something from scratch is a great experience as a student.

Albert Kragl, '21

Frequently Asked Questions

Team: Work on a team of 4-7 students led by a Product Manager

Build: Develop the product throughout 1-2 semesters

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 1-2 semesters' worth 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.

The one thing that we value most over everything else is your willingness to learn. Having previous experience is great, but we make sure to take a wide variety of skill sets every semester. If you want to improve your skills, we strongly encourage you to apply!