Professional hackathon programmers travel around the hackathon circuit, winning merchandise and small cash prizes. There are enough hackathons that some programmers actually do this as a full-time job. For example, Peter Ma, a programmer who describes himself as a “rapid prototype specialist.” Peter is a great programmer, and he has received lots of offers to work at big tech companies. What drives him to stay independent and work on hackathon projects?

There are other types of corporate hackathons. Many of us are familiar with the hackathon where a manager orders pizza and suggests that everyone stays at the office late fixing bugs. Some hackathons are held for kids, to get them exposed to technologies early on.

Lizette Chapman is a reporter at Bloomberg, where she writes about technology, business, and news. I was fascinated by her story about hackathons, and it was great to have her on the show to talk about the characters of the hackathon circuit, and why corporations sponsor hackathons.

Lizette has co-hosted the Bloomberg Decrypted podcast in an episode about hackathons. Decrypted is one of my favorite podcasts and I recommend checking it out.

These Hackathon Hustlers Make Their Living from Corporate Coding Contests

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