Welcome to Meet the Contest Winner—a HackerNoon interview series celebrating the writers behind our most memorable contest entries.
Let’s get started! Tell us who you are and why you decided to participate in the HackerNoon Writing Contest in the first place.
Hi, I’m Sibasis Padhi, an expert in Agentic AI microservices and cloud performance optimization for financial systems. I joined the HackerNoon writing contest as a personal experiment, not just to publish, but to share real infrastructure-level lessons I’ve learned from building high-scale FinTech platforms. I saw it as an opportunity to take complex backend systems thinking and make it accessible to a wider audience.
Tell us more about your winning piece.
My article, “The Case for Decentralized Cloud and Blockchain in FinTech Infrastructure,” was born out of a real-world architectural dilemma. As financial systems grow in complexity and scale, centralized bottlenecks create fragility. I have spent years solving performance challenges in enterprise applications, and this piece is a reflection of that proposing a hybrid model where blockchain-inspired principles can boost resilience and trust. It was part analysis, part advocacy, and 100% rooted in my day-to-day engineering reality.
What was the most challenging part of drafting or revising this entry, and how was that challenge ultimately solved?
The biggest challenge was translating deep tech into a compelling story, especially one that fits a public contest. I tend to write like an architect: diagrams, latency numbers, incident root causes. But for this, I had to layer in clarity, simplicity, and a sense of urgency. I solved that by imagining I was explaining it to a junior engineer during an incident call, someone who gets the stakes but needs the bigger picture.
Was there a pivotal change from first draft to final submission that made the work “click,” and what triggered it?
Yes, removing the theoretical fluff. Initially, I had too much academic framing. But the moment I rewrote it using language like “Here’s the bottleneck we saw in production…” and “What if blockchain wasn’t just for tokens, but for trust enforcement between systems?” — it clicked. It became actionable. Real. That shift gave the piece its identity.
Did specific research or lived experience shape key scenes or images, and how was that integrated into the narrative?
Absolutely. The article was deeply shaped by my time working on real-time incentive platforms, fraud prevention systems, and high-throughput transaction gateways. These lived experiences informed every paragraph, especially when discussing the tradeoffs of centralization vs decentralization, and how performance and trust are tightly coupled in FinTech.
How was the title chosen, and did its meaning evolve during revisions?
The title was deliberate: “The Case for…” gave it a structured, almost legal weight. I wanted readers to feel like they were being presented with evidence, not opinion. The word “Decentralized” was retained throughout, but what evolved was the framing, from “blockchain for the sake of buzz” to “blockchain as an architectural safeguard.” That evolution sharpened the message.
How was the entry tailored to this contest – brief, theme, length, or judging criteria – without compromising voice?
I made sure to anchor the article around real infrastructure pain points while aligning it with the broader theme of blockchain’s relevance in modern systems. I avoided hype. Instead, I focused on practicality, tradeoffs, and performance — all without diluting my engineering voice. The contest encouraged bold ideas, and I stayed authentic by letting architecture speak louder than analogies. The editor of hackernoon, who reviewd my piece, gave some real good feedback, where I improved upon in the next version & that helped to make it really a unique article.
What does this recognition change for current projects or near‑term publishing plans?
Winning gave me confidence that deep backend engineers also have a voice in public tech media. This has energized me to write more, particularly on topics like agentic microservices, auto-tuning in cloud systems, and performance-led DevOps. I plan to launch an ongoing FinTech infrastructure series and open-source a few companion tools.
What advice would be offered to first‑time entrants preparing a competition submission?
Don’t over-polish. Write like you’re explaining a real problem to a peer. Be honest about what broke, how you fixed it, and what you would do differently. People don’t want theory, they want what actually works. And don’t underestimate your lived experience, that’s your originality.
Looking back at HackerNoon’s contest process, what feedback or one change would most improve the entrant experience?
The experience was smooth, but one improvement might be offering short editorial feedback to submissions that don’t make it, especially for technical writers. Even a few lines on what didn’t land could help contributors improve and come back stronger.
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Want to be our next featured contest winner?
Enter the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon for a shot at $150K+ in cash prizes and software credits.
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