Hi, I'm Ashwin. I am the head of community at Devfolio and I just completed a year here! Let me take you through what I did over the last year.

Hackathons aren't new to me, I used to ~hate~ code (ever coded on MS-DOS? You'll probably relate).

Hackathons Are for Learners, Not Just Students

Contrary to the popular assumption that hackathons are for "hackers", hackathons makes the most sense for (relative) beginners. If you want to learn a new technology, tool or even understand the hype everyone's talking on Twitter, picking a hackathon is the best way to understand it without sacrificing money, time or work/school.

Build Teams Beyond Your Circle

Frankly, for me, some of the best career friends came out of hackathons. The ones where I chose to form a team instead of bringing one. This eventually led to a butterfly effect that got me into international conferences, great career options and cool friendships in new towns when moving.

Team formation is a core area many hackers ignore as they like to bring their friends who they are comfortable in communicating with. Unfortunately, in professional spaces, you may not know everyone and learning how to communicate is a core software engineering skill (Way more important than any JS framework).

Putting yourself in the uncomfortable space of team formation does a few things

• Encourages you to sell yourself (with your experience & motivation) to others.
• Holds you accountable for your duties in a team for the sake of reputation.

When you are hacking with a bunch of good-ol' friends, it's very easy to bail out, take up tasks or even build the project cause you may end up spending more time hanging-out than hacking, which can be distraction.

In a new team, you are bound to show progress for the sake of maintaining that new connection with the team mate who may know more than you one certain skill-level. Conversly, same happens to them as they find a skill you are better at.

Shared struggles solve better problems

I know you want to solve that one problem in the ecosystem, but when you pick a problem everyone relates to, you motivate everyone to join you.

The concept of shared struggles applies to all forms of bonding. Apply it to team formation and you get a super-solid team that  believes in the same cause. Apply it to your project and you'll impress the judges who had a relatable problem.

Ideation is the least invested area of a hackathon. Most hackers try to procrastinate the ideation to the start of the hackathon or pick the problem from the sponsored tracks (not a bad idea but everyone's going to be solving them).

This concept also applies to your professional life, whether you are building a product or the next big SaaS. Solving a shared problem over a personal one will grab more attention and in-turn, more opportunities for you.

Hackathons are free, your time isn't

Sometime down the line, you might get hooked into hackathons. Learn to draw the line and look for bigger fish.

I have organized, participated in, mentored, and judged at countless hackathons. What was important to learn is how vastly the audience and its behavior can change across ecosystems. Student, Web2 & Web3 communities behave in different ways outside the hackathon days which impacts each ecosystem's career and skill pipeline via hackathons.

• If you learned a skill, share it by writing a blog or video tutorial. Day 1 for you is Day 0 for someone else. Sharing any knowledge helps (and builds your reputation online)
• Participated in 5+ hackathons? Try judging, mentoring, or volunteering next. It builds very different skills as a professional and organizers recognize you.
• Working professional? Hackathons are a great place to explore technology outside your domain and not miss office hours. (pick any weekend hacks)

It's important to understand that hackathons are an event format for developer education based on ‘learning by doing.’. It's not the end goal.

You will find bounty hunters who go from hackathon-to-hackathon making a living out of it. This isn't a bad path but it also restricts you from solving bigger ideas (that need more than 24 hours) and growing beyond the scope of four-person devs.

You must have fun.

Super important.

Fun is subjective, so you need to ensure you are having fun in your own ways. Karaoke with teammates or swag-run to all sponsor booths, If it's the organizers' duty to line-up ice-breakers and fun sessions for you, then it's your opportunity to join in and make some memories.

As an organizer, it is worth flexing that we have the most fun in organizing hackathons at Devfolio.

Never Stop Building

This is our motto, and it's also an advice for your career.

Staying technical is important.

A strong hackathon team comprises great devs, a designer, and a presenter. But each should understand (even a little) what’s going on in their project.

Fast forward to your next full-time gig. You may be a product manager, a designer, or a community manager.. It's still relevant to stay technical with your product and ecosystem. This gives you an edge over other non-technical members (more non-tech members, the better you stand out)

Now with LLMs, anyone can vibe-code, might as well use them to learn a little bit of what's happening in your codebase.

I try to participate in hackathons or vibe-code a personal project, when I’ve had a week full of community work..

Oh..and there's one more thing. Flex.

You've got to talk about your hackathon achievements. Not just wins.

Here are some of my wins. In this one year at Devfolio:

• Organized ETHIndia 2024, ETHDenver 2025, Warpspeed 2025
• Organized BlockTrain: world's first Ethereum Hackathon on Train 🚂
• Organized Interfaces 2025 @ IIT Delhi.
• Won StoryAI Hackathon.
• Joined Network School for a month (I'm writing this from there!)
• Became a Devconnect Scholar (See you in Buenos Aires! 🇦🇷)
• Became Head of Community at Devfolio.
• Shipped JesseGPT, Devfolio Week of Shipping
• Ran Organizer101 Show.
• Ran 2586Labs Everyday Essentials Series.
• Running Student Hackathon Grants with AWS

See you at the next hackathon 👋🏻.

🛠 ️Never Stop Building 🛠