Hackathons are not a good way to bring the best out of engineers

Re:Hackathons are not a good way to bring the best out of en... by jaChEWAg on Sunday July 14, 2019 @06:03PM (#20436447)

I see your point of view and respect it. I think hackathons may not be everyone and my original thought was I felt companies using hackathons as a way to benchmark developers (as if we are machines) based on their output.

I could be wrong but that's just how I feel about it.

Lastly, if I were to organize a hackathon. I think the the first I would do would be making it at least a week long instead of 2-3 days. In addition, I would make it required to not allow participants to stay more than 8 hours each day. After all when I think of hackathons, I think it's a time to tinker with technology and come up with something cool. NOT staying up for 3 days straight to win some prize.

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Re:Hackathons are not a good way to bring the best out of en... by malux85 on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @08:11AM (#20449301)

You’re correct in that there are some companies out there using hacksathons to benchmark and also steal IP (I’ve seen some where the participants are required to sign a document saying said company owned all intellectual property produced during the hacathon - hidden in small print)

It’s disgusting behaviour because a hackathon is supposed to be about freedom of ideas, intellectual stimulation and humour and fun - and these companies are just purely exploiting it. They should be named and shamed.

I would add that any halfway decent manager understands that while a developer can sprint, it is by definition an exhausting short term gain, and this is an unsustainable medium and long term strategy : and if your manager doesn’t understand something so basic about people management, it’s time to look for a new job

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Re:Hackathons are not a good way to bring the best out of en... by johnday on Monday July 15, 2019 @12:04PM (#20442080)

Yes, we have also been leaning towards running our sites for only "office hours" of 9-5, sometimes closer to 9-10 to allow for people who wake up outside of "human hours".

The downside of week-long events is that you exclude people who have to go to work or have other commitments, but might be able to make time over a weekend.

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