MARCH 2022 HACKDAY (Part 1) The Morse Man bot

.. - ... / .... .- -.-. -.- / -.. .- -.-- / .- - / -.- --- --. .- -. -.-.--

The above elegant line of dits and dahs is Morse code. Developed in the 1800s, it has stood the test of time, and with its combination of nostalgia, intrigue and retro vibe, it’s primed for a resurgence in popularity. Instant messengers can feel a bit synthetic and for those who long for a more analog, authentic communication, Morse code may well meet this need. As part of our regular hack days at Kogan.com, and with the intention of improving Slack by adding personalised features, a Morse code bot was just one of a plethora of bots that was created on the day.

So how did we achieve this greatness?

It started with a repurposed Google Cloud project and a quickly assembled Flask app to lay the solid foundations on which to build. Because we care about developer experience, we added UAT builds on push to our dev branch, and because we care about consistency, we set up some pre-commit checks. Once that was done, it was time to start with the meat and potatoes, and get some functionality working. After examining Slack documentation we knew vaguely what we needed. That was to create a custom Slack app bot and use slash commands to access our Flask app. Essentially, one can access a Slack app bot by typing “/bot-name” into the message box and whatever message you write after this is sent as a parameter to the request url specified. The response from this request is then posted in the channel from which it was sent. We could now start work on the individual bots.

The Morse Man bot:

Our progress so far had worked well, but we soon stumbled upon a constraint that was rendering the Morse bot worthless. The problem is as follows, should you wish to utilise the Morse bot to encode a message, the bot replies to the channel with both of the following messages:

Morse Man Slack bot posts:

@userTryingToBeSecret sent this message: /morse Here is my super secret message

Morse Man Slack bot posts: .... . .-. . / .. ... / -- -.-- / ... ..- .--. . .-. / ... . -.-. .-. . - / -- . ... ... .- --. .

No point sending a secret message if you send the real message with it at the same time. Concerned that this could affect uptake and not wanting to jeopardize the project, a better technical solution would be necessary. Further investigation found there is an option to set the bot response to only be visible to the sender, and it was also found the Slack API can be used to send messages ad hoc. Combining these 2 possibilities we are now able to do the following:

• Use a slash command to call the bot
• Send a request to the Flask app (and return no response)
• The Flask app receives the message as a parameter, and using sophisticated algorithms encodes it into Morse. At the same time we get the channel ID from the request API
• Using the separate Slack web API, make a request to the channel and send the message!

Lastly, our Slack bot could only be taken seriously if it has a legitimate avatar, and hence our UI/UX designer got involved to add a polished feel to the project. The end result can be witnessed below.

The Horse Man bot:

Following on from the development and good learnings of the Morse Man bot, but instead of converting into Morse code, it uses an alternative proprietary encryption method to convert into horse dialect. Also complete with its own avatar.

Impersonator bot:

A skunk works project that was developed in the shadows. Someone noticed that you could supply any name and icon with the API request, and this essentially meant you would be able to impersonate any user on Slack(this is true apart from the small word ‘app’ after the username indicating its true source) By using the Slack API that returns user details, the bot can accept a username and a message, then automatically retrieve the users Icon and repost the message as that user. A dangerous discovery that was essentially banned immediately.

Humor bot:

Using the same foundations, but then uses external APIs to fetch jokes from Chuck Norris and Ron Swanson to inject some humor where required.

Dashboard bot:

A truly value adding bot. The idea was for a bot to provide snapshots of our Grafana dashboards when requested on slack. This could provide quick access for everyone and also add value if needed as part of a discussion. It leverages Selenium to login and render the dashboard, as well as take a screenshot, which is then returned with the Slack web API.

Unmorse bot:

Decodes Morse code. This has proven to be particularly useful, as it turns out not many people can read Morse code directly.

We now have a bunch of nifty bots at our disposal and a better understanding of the functionality available for integrating with Slack. At Kogan.com, hack days are considered an important tool in giving us the time to pursue alternative projects of our own choice. The skills and ideas seeded from a hack day can result in something that adds direct benefit or can be an opportunity to learn and upskill ourselves.  It also adds to the culture of our workplace and supports team work by giving us the chance to work with people outside our normal team.

Celebrating International Women’s day

Tuesday 8 March was International Women's Day, a celebration of women and their achievements. A day of celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. This year we thought we’d celebrate by spotlighting an incredible group of women who work in the Kogan.com engineering team. We’ve cultivated an inclusive environment to ensure that women in our team can thrive, from providing equal opportunities, coaching and mentorship at every career stage to various benefits that support home and work life. Here’s what this group of Kogan.com women had to say about why they love working in our product, design & engineering space and how to grow—personally and professionally. Check out their stories!

Why do you love being an engineer at Kogan.com?

“ There’s always something that pushes me to get out of my comfort zone, whether it’s a simple feature implementation or a head-scratching problem. I’m surrounded by very talented and driven teammates, so there’s never a boring day. Most importantly, I feel supported and I’m constantly reminded that working within the Engineering space doesn’t have to be monotonous.”

Ana Teo, Software Engineer.

“ Working in the Engineering Team is rewarding because we get to work on a variety of features and continuously learn new things. We have an amazing, talented team and the work environment is friendly and fun.”

Hanna Koskela, Software Engineer.

What do you love most about the product and design space at Kogan.com?

“ Before I became a member of the Kogan.com engineering team, I was an avid customer. I loved the vast number of products that Kogan.com offered and that I could buy anything from home appliances to clothes to setting up a credit card. Being a pre-existing customer I was already fairly familiar with the end-user experience, after joining I got to see how things operated to make the whole platform run smoothly. I enjoyed meeting the people behind the scenes, from the people involved in the financial operations to the customer care team. I’ve learnt so much from these experiences. I love that there are always new things to learn. This has encouraged me to think outside the box and keep developing my professional skills. Our team has an incredible opportunity to grow as every new project provides new experiences to learn from. No day is the same and I always feel like I am learning something new.”

Hien Do, Product Owner.

“ We don’t limit our products on e-commerce itself. We have brought Australians the most in-demand products and services such as Kogan Internet, Kogan Insurance, and Kogan Super. As a designer, I will continue exploring the possibilities with my colleagues, and designing a user experience that can benefit our customers as well as support our Kogan staff.”

Mengfei Hu, Senior User Experience Designer.

What comes to mind when you think of growth in the technology space?

“I think about growth and development as a tool to cultivate ownership. The more responsibility you give someone, the more ownership they have. Our team provides a wide range of growth paths for engineers and within our product design space. Team members get to really think about the details of what they want to do and chart their path so they get to have a high impact. Having clear goals and direction and using tools like CultureAmp, provides clarity so that each person knows what success looks like and how to get there.” 

Anita Rajalingam, Talent Acquisition Lead

“User experience has become one of the most widely used term in the technology space. Kogan.com is well known as one of the largest ecommerce platforms in the technology space that cares about their customers’ experience. They are meticulous about the product design as well as the functionality to ensure the users’ needs are always being listened to and responded. It’s such an honor for me to work as Senior UX Designer at Kogan. I endeavor to continue bringing immersive experiences to my product users.“You’re limitless if you go out of the box”

Michelle Huynh, Senior UX Designer

What is the best advice that you’ve received, or want to share to other women in technology?

“Perfectionism is the enemy of progress” 

Working in a male-dominated field, it’s easy to get into the mindset of having to “prove yourself” and wanting to do things perfectly. I learned early on that nobody will be as critical of my work as I am. Don’t let your sense of perfectionism stand in the way of delivering great work. 

Sandra Kärcher, Senior Product Manager

“Be exactly who you are and stay true to your values! The key to thriving in your work environment is authenticity. Also, take on any opportunity to learn something new - keep an open mind and don’t be so afraid to not succeed that you never try different things. The technology sector is incredibly diverse, and people are surprised that I work within the field despite not having formally studied computer science or IT. I remind myself every day that I don’t have to know everything, I just need to bring together the right people to find our solutions.”

Christine Kha, Product Owner

Supporting and celebrating women worldwide

We’re thrilled that we get to celebrate the accomplishments of women around the world—and within Kogan.com. Keen to see how you can take your engineering career to the next level at Kogan.com? We’re growing our engineering team and would love to hear from you!

Technology Talks

I recently delivered a short talk to the Kogan.com engineering team on GraphQL - a technology that has not yet seen adoption at the company, but for which there arguably exists a need. Customers shop on Kogan.com across devices with different data requirements, and our reliance on traditional REST APIs leads to cases of under-fetching and over-fetching. GraphQL is a potential solution to this issue that can also make calling our APIs more simple, flexible and intuitive.

Presentations like these serve two main purposes: to educate and to inspire. Hosting regular discussions around technology practices helps share knowledge between engineers and identify where improvements can be made. At Kogan.com, we hold regular presentations and discussions about technology, typically hosted by members of the engineering team. These come in two flavours – hour-long “tech talks” and 15-minute “lightning talks”. Each is held roughly once a month, and the responsibility to host them cycles between each member of the engineering team. My presentation was a lightning talk, but another engineer in my team recently delivered a tech talk on OpenAPI practices. An effective talk appeals to all members of the audience. Despite having experience with OpenAPI, there were still valuable things that I learned.

Technology talks are important to organisations, so that they can share the best ideas and keep up with continual change. There will certainly be more talks this year at Kogan.com; I look forward to learning more about what my colleagues have to share.