​🏆 The Phia Hack

​Two days. One shot to ship something that changes how millions of people shop.

​📅 When? April 18-19, 2026
🗽 Where? Phia HQ, NYC

​Phia is the AI shopping agent helping over a million people find the perfect pieces across 350M+ products and 7,200 brand partners. We've raised $43M from Khosla and Kleiner, and we're just getting started.

​So we're opening up Phia HQ for two days and inviting a small group of the best builders to work on the hardest, most interesting problems in AI commerce right now. 

​We’re looking for hungry, fast backend and forward-deployed engineers who want to build products FAST.

​Prizes
🥇Winners get $5,000 prize +  dinner with founding team + fast-track interview at Phia 
🥈Runner-ups get $2,500 + interview opportunities at Phia
🥉Surprise prizes 💸 

​

​How It Works:

​​Stage 1 — Online Screening: Apply by April 1st at 11:59 pm ET.  We'll shortlist ~50 candidates to move forward on a rolling basis. 

​​Stage 2 — Technical Challenge: Complete by April 8th at 11:59 pm ET. Finalists will be selected and notified by April 10th.

​​Stage 3 — The Hackathon: Two-day, in-person event (April 18-19 in New York City at Phia HQ). You'll pick one of five tracks, build something real, and present it to the team. You can go solo or pair up with one other person (we'll have a matching system if you want a collaborator).

​

​​The Tracks:

​1️⃣ Agentic Commerce. How do we get from "I want this" to “I purchased this,” without the user lifting a finger?

​2️⃣ Personalized Shopping. How does Phia surface the right product before the shopper even asks? Anticipate needs from context, behavior, and signals rather than waiting for a search.

​3️⃣ Post-Purchase Intelligence. How does Phia extend its value beyond the cart? How do we leverage smarter returns, reorder timing, price tracking, rewards, and more to build a long-term relationship with the shopper.

​4️⃣ Enriched Insights. How do we pull real signals (TikTok reviews, Reddit threads, information about the item + website, virtual try-on, Instagram tags, etc.) and distill them into the things a shopper actually needs to hear to make a confident decision?

​5️⃣ Wild Card. Got an idea that doesn't fit the mold? If it makes Phia smarter, faster, or more magical for shoppers, we want to hear it.

​The search is on! Join us 😈