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Hackathons were a thing when they were an engineering event... an engineering holiday to work on something worth working on. Like undoing some technical debt me
by partycoder 10y ago
Hackathons were a thing when they were an engineering event... an engineering holiday to work on something worth working on. Like undoing some technical debt mess or a long standing hack that you cannot fix during a sprint.
But now most hackathons are just implementing features with technical debt, which is the kind of engineering nobody likes.
Then, cheating in hackathons is incredibly hard to detect. Even if you force everyone to use version control and review what they did over time, there can always be the cooking show trick where suddenly you pull a finished important part from nowhere.
That's why I think hackathons should be engineering events, organized by engineers not the regular company hierarchy, and rewards should be given on engineering value not how much a feature can potentially sell.
- ThrowAway145 10y agoIn my experience, engineering hackathons are uncompensated overtime. usually on Friday nights or through weekends, dressed up as fun and games by management with free food and beer. "well GEE, thanks..." Of course, attendance is mandatory if you like having your job, and complaining about it makes you look like a bad sport. :| We were behind on our launch which was a month away so these hackathons kept happening every week.
- partycoder 10y agoAnd if you don't want to participate they retaliate.
- gech 10y agoWho's they? Unionize.