Who Survived the 30 Days of Postman Challenge?
When I first learned to code, I attempted HackerRank’s 30 days of coding to better understand data structure fundamentals. For each challenge, you could see the number of submissions along with the success rate. When I looked at that data in aggregate, I was shocked to see how few people stuck with the challenge for all 30 days. Only 8.2% made it to the very last day.
A few months ago, I created a similar coding challenge in Postman: 30 days of Postman — for developers.
Over the course of 30 (asynchronous) days, you fork the given daily challenge to your own public workspace and check your solutions locally. At the end, you submit your final solution as a pull request to be reviewed by the Postman team. Accepted solutions earn you a badge and a spot on our public leaderboard.
In the back of my mind, even while I was planning the topics, I wondered how many people would get through the entire thing. I didn’t want it to be too hard or too easy. I also wanted it to cover useful stuff, but without being too dry and boring.
Let’s take a look at how many developers lasted until the end.
Who stuck with it for 30 days?
It all starts with Day 1 (the second bar in the graph below). After that, you can see a steep drop-off in the first few days as people stopped progressing. Perhaps they had bitten off more than they could chew or the challenge just wasn’t for them.
Then the decline continues more gradually. People eventually give up (or are still working through their challenges). Of the people who I imagine had some intention of completing all the challenges by forking the challenge on Day 1, only 11.2% of them made it to the very last day and submitted a successful pull request.
Did I make it too hard?
I don’t think so. This challenge falls in my Goldilocks-approved target of difficulty — not too hard and not too easy. Novice developers may struggle with some of the core coding execution, but I don’t lose sleep over that for two main reasons:
- The documentation includes dozens of solutions that are easily discoverable if people are diligent about reviewing the instructions and cited resources.
- Learning how to use the internet or Postman Community forum to seek help is a valuable skill used by professional developers.
Making an easier version of the 30-day challenge would be a disservice to the 11.2% who completed it successfully and claimed their badge.
If you think you have what it takes, there is still time to check out 30 days of Postman — for developers for yourself. And stick with it until at least Day 3—then you’ll already be ahead of the curve.
Well-designed challenge, Joyce! It was not only fun but also challenging. After completing it I must say I have learned a few new things about Postman. Thanks a lot.
Where can I see challenge progress ?
Today I started the 15 days challenge and I’m enjoying, but I think the navigation between Documentation and the Request tab is very annoying and not quite productive. I think this can be one of the reasons the people weren’t engaged till the end of the challenge.
I agree it can be distracting to switch between the request and documentation. In the introductory video, I suggest UX alternatives, or some use separate windows.
Is this 30 days of Postman Challenge thing still working/available? I tried and just one day 1 assignment, I tried to send POST https://postman-echo.com/post with the json body payload hello world, the sending request just taking forever and no response coming back.