How Hackathons Can Help You Build Much-Needed Developer Experience

Anybody who has recently applied for an engineering job knows the famous tech world catch-22. You can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. Or can you?

Sure, building your portfolio by getting hands-on experience in a paid position at a company would be ideal. But the predicted recession and current job market full of hiring freezes and mass layoffs aren’t exactly making it easy.

So how else can you develop the essential hard and soft skills that developers need to get hired and succeed in an engineering role? Especially since those skills can really only be learned through hands-on experience?

One fantastic solution is hackathons. A perfect way to do real developing that will teach you important skills and give you something to show potential employers, hackathons are a must for developers looking to take a step forward in their careers. This article explains why.

What Is a Hackathon?

A hackathon is an event during which groups of engineers come together to creatively solve problems and create a functioning finished product. They typically take place over the course of 24 to 48 hours, with participants often staying up all night to get as much work finished as possible. Hackathons can be held online, in person, or as a hybrid event, and may be hosted by companies or various engineering organizations.

In addition to being a lot of hard work and effort, hackathons are usually really fun. They encourage developers to collaborate, apply agile development practices, and come up with innovative ideas and solutions. There’s usually a lot of pizza, coffee, and maybe some beer involved as fuel to help participants get to the end goal of completing a cool new project to present to the group and sometimes even win a prize (or at least some warm, fuzzy recognition). If you haven’t participated in one yet, hackathons are an experience every dev should have at least once.

Benefits of Hackathons

On top of being a fun, worthwhile experience, hackathons also offer devs a lot of useful career benefits, especially if you’re struggling to gain a new skill or find a job. Below, we review just some of the advantages of working on hackathons.

Team experience

No man is an island, and developers are no exception. The modern tech organization requires quite a bit of collaboration from its devs from code review to paired programming to working on a cross-functional team. Because hackathons are usually worked on by teams rather than individuals, they help participants gain important collaborative experience, teaching soft skills such as communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution.

Learning from more experienced developers

Before they are hired to work at a company, beginning devs rarely get the chance to work with and learn from experienced vets. Hackathons give you this opportunity – and for free, at that! Plus, you’ll be sure to find at least one coffee break during which you can ask any burning questions you might have for somebody with years of experience in the field you’re trying to break into.

Building a portfolio

Because you get to choose them, the projects that developers work on during hackathons are usually pretty cool. In addition to engaging you during the work process, this also means you’ll end up with something interesting and unique to add to your portfolio and give to prospective employers to show off your skills.

Experiencing the entire product development cycle

As we’ve mentioned, the goal of a hackathon is to have a finished project by the end. This means that just a single hackathon project will teach you every stage of the product development cycle from ideation to breaking down features into tasks to assembly and debugging.

Upcoming Hackathons to Join

Itching to sign up for a hackathon as soon as possible? Check out these great options coming up in Q1 of 2023:

1. Hack Nitr  - One of India's largest student-run hackathons, Hack Nitr will be taking place from January 6th to 8th.
2. Git Init - Hosted by Cal Commit, this is a student hackathon that will run from January 6th to 8th.
3. Wilco hackathon - Wilco’s online hackathon will happen from January 8th to 28th and offer cash prizes for first, second, and third-place winners.
4. HackFit 2 - Hosted by the official collegiate hackathon league Major League Hacking, this hackathon is focused on the field of health and well-being, and it will take place from January 20th to 22nd.
5. Hack-Commerce - Another Major League Hacking event, this hackathon is intended for projects related to eCommerce and will happen from January 27th to 29th.
6. UK National Open Hackathon - The UK’s annual open hackathon will kick off on February 27th and continue to March 6th to 8th.

Hackathon, hack a career

Hackathons are truly the definition of a win/win. In addition to having a good time, meeting like-minded people, and contributing to an interesting project, you’ll also gain the skills and experience that employers are looking for. At a difficult economic time when finding a new job is hardly a guarantee, this is certainly a way toward career development worth considering.