Beyond Coding Episode #106

Hackathon Awesomeness, Career Benefits and Culture with Sashrika Kaur

Xebia Wave Long Background

Description

I’ve never heard someone talk bad about hackathons. Everyone loves it.

The projects that’ve been built during hackathons have even been the start of a company, of something big.

But what about hackathons make people like it so much. Is it the people, the format, the culture?

Sashrika Kaur comes on to discuss all these things and more!

Enjoy!

Youtube

Full episode on YouTube ▶️

https://youtu.be/L5TFtJet-Ic

New episodes every Wednesday with our host  Patrick Akil!  

Big shoutout to ⁠Xebia⁠ for sponsoring this episode!

Guest

Connect with Sashrika Kaur:

https://linkedin.com/in/sashrika-kaur

https://twitter.com/sashrikakaur

Outline

00:00:00 – Intro

00:00:29 – Sashrika moving to London

00:02:37 – Friendships across the world

00:03:09 – How Sashrika got involved in Major League Hacking

00:05:51 – Innovation Days vs. hackathons

00:09:13 – People love hackathons

00:13:36 – A focus on collaboration

00:15:04 – Building things from scratch

00:18:14 – The perfect duration of a hackathon

00:20:07 – hackathon skills that translate to your career

00:23:47 – The benefit of reading code

00:25:05 – Competitiveness in developing software

00:27:01 – Personal insecurities in hackathons

00:32:21 – It's about the outcomes

00:32:57 – Good vs. great hackathons

00:37:16 – Why the term "hacker"?

00:39:57 – Optimal team sizes

00:41:49 – What do you become a hackathon coach?

00:44:04 – Why Sashrika works in big tech

00:48:23 – Balancing the workload

00:51:41 – More or less hackathons?

00:55:21 – Go to hackathons!