Chime Innovation, Technology & Agility

What practices does your team employ to foster innovation, and how have these practices led to more creative, out-of-the-box thinking?

Since joining Chime, I’ve been consistently impressed by how the company fosters innovation. Just a month in, my manager and teammates encouraged me to participate in the annual hackathon. Chime’s hackathons bring together hundreds of “Chimers” and spark not only creative product ideas but also new connections across teams that continue to help me to this day.

Within my core team, we also host Innovation Days, where we tackle pressing challenges and find solutions that could scale or automate our work and reduce the team’s burdens. These small side projects don’t just help us; they free up more of our time to develop innovative products that improve our customers’ experiences as well. Beyond hackathons and Innovation Days, I’ve found that onsites, guild meetings, Donut chats and cross-functional workshops instill a strong sense of learning and collaboration. These moments spark deeper understanding, foster alignment and inspire fresh ways of problem-solving in us.

How has a focus on innovation increased the quality of your team’s work? 

Our focus on innovation enabled us to build data-driven dashboards that began as a side project. As part of the quality engineering team, we transformed these dashboards into impactful tools that provide essential, actionable insights and aggregate key metrics, offering a comprehensive view of product quality and health. Through these efforts, we’ve not only improved efficiency but also developed a stronger culture of ownership, collaboration and data-driven thinking.

Another example born out of a hackathon was our automated ticket triage process. What once required hours of manual effort across teams is now handled with greater speed and accuracy, significantly reducing overhead and improving response times.

How has a focus on innovation bolstered your team’s culture? 

Having the support and bandwidth at both the team and organizational level to prioritize innovation has helped us move more quickly toward our goals. It has created a team culture and environment where people are always ready to roll up their sleeves and improve how we work, which in turn fosters a strong sense of collaboration. Events like hackathons, guild onsites and guild meetings provide great opportunities to bond and boost morale, especially important while working in a remote environment. These practices strengthen our team culture, making it easier to connect and support one another. 

Whether we’re pairing on technical design docs or jumping into an impromptu huddle to brainstorm solutions, it has taught us all to value flexibility and shared ownership, which helps us stay creative, productive and aligned. Innovation at Chime isn’t just an initiative — it’s a mindset, and I’ve felt empowered to be a part of it from day one.