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At my first hackathon I had entirely opposite experience. Though it was not less disappointing. Most of the teams came with something pre-made and tried to fit

At my first hackathon I had entirely opposite experience. Though it was not less disappointing. Most of the teams came with something pre-made and tried to fit it to the theme of the event. And one team was pitching their startup. Of course all of them were good at pitching, but implementation-wise they were ahead of "hackers" too even not touching their keyboards...

komali2 10y ago
Reminds me of my friends' nightmare experience at the SF girls-only hackathon. My friends are both pretty darn good software engineers, and went to pick up some other floaters to build a team there. They got a project manager, who they tasked with finding them more engineers. Project manager comes back.... with 2 more project managers. So with their team of 2 engineers and 3 project managers they got very little product done. I think events like this shouldn't be called "Hackathons." Maybe "Pitch Events" or something. If you can win without writing a single line of code (which I have seen at two SF "hackathons") it should not be a hackathon.
- megablast 10y ago
  > Project manager comes back.... with 2 more project managers. So with their team of 2 engineers and 3 project managers they got very little product done. Why? Just ignore the PM and get work done, just like normal. PMs are great at hackathons for getting your drinks, talking to other teams, talking to judges and organisers about stuff they are looking for, getting the presentation ready.
  - komali2 10y ago
    Well, two engineers vs teams of 5 engineers is a pretty distinct disadvantage. Furthermore, the PMs weren't doing their assigned tasks, like setting up the PPT and shit, so my friends had to do all that as well. So really the problem is the 3 other people on their team were just straight up incompetent / unmotivated, not so much that they were of X_Y_Z career.

komali2 10y ago

Reminds me of my friends' nightmare experience at the SF girls-only hackathon. My friends are both pretty darn good software engineers, and went to pick up some other floaters to build a team there. They got a project manager, who they tasked with finding them more engineers. Project manager comes back.... with 2 more project managers. So with their team of 2 engineers and 3 project managers they got very little product done. I think events like this shouldn't be called "Hackathons." Maybe "Pitch Events" or something. If you can win without writing a single line of code (which I have seen at two SF "hackathons") it should not be a hackathon.

megablast 10y ago
> Project manager comes back.... with 2 more project managers. So with their team of 2 engineers and 3 project managers they got very little product done. Why? Just ignore the PM and get work done, just like normal. PMs are great at hackathons for getting your drinks, talking to other teams, talking to judges and organisers about stuff they are looking for, getting the presentation ready.
- komali2 10y ago
  Well, two engineers vs teams of 5 engineers is a pretty distinct disadvantage. Furthermore, the PMs weren't doing their assigned tasks, like setting up the PPT and shit, so my friends had to do all that as well. So really the problem is the 3 other people on their team were just straight up incompetent / unmotivated, not so much that they were of X_Y_Z career.