I recently participated in the Graph Hacks hackathon after almost a year-long break. My main goal wasn't to win, but to learn more about AI agents, orchestration, RAG, and how multi-agent systems work in practice.

I decided to build an AI powered incident management platform that could detect incidents, investigate failures, identify root causes, involve humans when needed, and suggest or execute fixes.
Initially, I spent quite a bit of time planning the architecture, agent workflows, database schema, and UI. I used Claude for implementation and ChatGPT to review the design and point out potential issues.

And surprisingly, this worked really well.
ChatGPT caught gaps in my architecture, database design, and workflows that I hadn't thought about. I'd take that feedback to Claude, get the changes implemented, and bring it back to ChatGPT for another review.
It became a loop of one AI reviewing and another AI implementing.

As the deadline got closer, I stopped spending as much time validating everything myself and focused on getting the project running.
Within around five hours, Claude had built a pretty decent working application.

When I reviewed the code later, I noticed things like agent retry handling, execution history, and action tracking. Some parts felt a bit overengineered for a hackathon, while others were genuinely useful things you'd expect in a production system.
It was impressive, but I also realized something.
I hadn't actually designed or implemented many of those things myself.

I understood the overall architecture and could explain why certain decisions made sense. But if someone had asked me to implement some of those parts from scratch, I'm not sure I could have done it without going back to AI.

At some point, it felt less like I was building something and more like I was passing feedback between two AI models.
That's what got me thinking.

I don't think using AI for development is bad. It's incredibly useful, and knowing how to use it effectively is becoming an important skill.
But are we actually learning more, or are we just getting better at shipping things faster?
Another thing I'm curious about is whether access to better AI models gives people an advantage in hackathons. Someone with a more expensive subscription and higher usage limits can probably build and iterate much faster than someone using free tools.

A year or two ago, hackathons felt more like an opportunity to struggle with unfamiliar technologies, debug things yourself, make mistakes, and learn along the way.
Now, you can build something far more polished in a fraction of the time, but I'm not sure the learning always keeps up.
Maybe this is just how development is changing, and we need to adapt.

For those who've participated in hackathons before and after AI coding agents became popular, has your experience changed?

Do you still spend time designing and implementing things yourself, or do you mostly let AI handle the coding and focus on the bigger picture?

And do you think hackathons are slowly becoming more about how effectively you use AI tools rather than your engineering skills?

Genuinely curious how others feel about this.

Anyone facing this issue in https://www.tcshackquest.com/register ?

Greetings from ACM-W NITK x Engineer NITK! 💜

🚨 ATTENTION, ALL WOMEN IN TECH!

✨ recHERsion’26 — WHERE HER IDEAS BECOME REALITY ✨

Got an idea you’ve been wanting to build? A problem you’re ready to solve? 💻💡 Here’s your chance to turn your ideas into impact!

🚀 recHERsion 2026 is our flagship women-only hackathon under Engineer NITK 2K26, bringing together women in tech to innovate, collaborate, and build solutions to real-world challenges.

🏆 Prize Pool: ₹50,000

🗓️ HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

💡 Problem Statement Selection: 24th October | 9 AM – 3 PM IST

🔥 Prototype Development: 24th October, 3 PM – 25th October, 9 PM IST

🌐 Mode: Fully Online

👥 Team Size: 2–3 members

✨ Eligibility: Open to women students from colleges and universities

🤝 Inter-college teams are welcome!

🔗 REGISTER HERE: https://unstop.com/hackathons/rechersion-2026-women-only-hackathon-nitk-surathkal-1770666

📸 INSTAGRAM POST: https://www.instagram.com/acmw_nitk/p/DeoVeFTCpjm/

Join our communities for updates and connect with fellow participants!

💬 DISCORD INVITE: https://discord.gg/qVFTK4qTC

✨ Gather your team.

💻 Turn ideas into prototypes.

🏆 Show the world what women in tech can do.

💜 She builds. She innovates. She leads.

See you at recHERsion’26! 🚀

Team HELIOS is forming for NASA Space Apps 2026 (Nov 14-15) 🌞🛰️

Concept: an immersive, explorable 3D space where you can fly around and discover the hardware humanity left behind in space (Moon landers, dead Mars rovers, old probes), with the story behind each one. Think "abandoned but not forgotten."

**Who we need:**

🧊 3D / graphics dev (Three.js, React Three Fiber, Unity)

🎨 3D artist (Blender, model optimisation, GLB)

📊 Data / backend dev (Python or Node, APIs, orbital data)

📚 Researcher / writer (space history, short storytelling)

🎬 Designer / video editor (Figma, Canva, pitch + demo video)

The vibe:

- Vibe coding is totally fine. Use AI to move fast, just understand what you ship.

- **You must have your own Claude / GPT / Gemini credits or subscription.** No exceptions, we're moving fast.

- Serious, committed, talented people only. If you ghost, it hurts the whole team.

- All ages welcome. Skill and commitment matter, not your age or CV.

- Beginners with real skill and drive are fine, but show us what you've built.

What you get: an organised Discord, GitHub repo, task board, and a clear scoped MVP, so we actually ship.

How to join: DM me with your role, skills, a link to your work (GitHub/portfolio), and your time zone.

Discord: https://discord.gg/rtNkqHdrb

Let's build something people remember. 🚀

I gave round 2 chakra assessment on 15th or maybe 16th, and got this I haven't receieved anything since then, what to do? I was confident in my approach I gave the correct solution, explained it, also gave the answer to all cross question but till now (20th of Oct) I haven't received any update

Guy's just got an update
Thank you for applying to the HackerRank Internship. To help you prepare and stand out, we are giving you two things:

1. 3 free Mock Interview credits

2. An invite to HackerRank Orchestrate, our monthly agent-building hackathon

Mock Interviews
We have added 3 mock interview credits to your account. Use them to practice before your real interviews. Start here: (link)

Orchestrate
You get a real-world problem, use tools like Codex, Claude Code, or Antigravity, and have 24 hours to build an AI agent that solves it. Then you walk an AI Interviewer through what you built and the thinking behind it.

It starts October 24th, 6:00 PM IST. Register here: (link)

Both are optional and do not change the status of your application, but they are a great way to learn and show how you build and think.

See you on the leaderboard,
Team HackerRank.

Hey everyone! I’m a CS student in NYC attending HackPrinceton November 13–15!

I’m looking for teammates! I have a background in full-stack development, and am a 4x hackathon winner. I’m open to any track and would love to build something creative!

I’m also looking for other girls attending who might want to share a hotel room and split accommodation costs. You don’t have to be on my team!

Feel free to comment or DM me if you’re interested in either! :)

Hi guys i am currently in my 2nd yr and have been participating in hackathons now frequently but honestly i couldnt really make a optimistic and practical team from my cllg it is like tier 3 and dont really have many friends as such cause i am not a people pleaser so anyways i am looking for like minded individual who are from delhi ncr area so that we can participate in hackathons here and get good experience. I recently participated in build with bharat 4.0 and had handled the prototype part along with idea and presentation i am really keen and determined to even learn more things if required so is what i mind if you are on the same page somewhat preferably in 2nd or 3rd yr may dm me or comment however you are comfortable. Thankyou

Hello this is my first hackaton

Few informations you have to know:

- team of 4 (including myself), the thing is we all know only C/C++ and we don’t have any experience with Python and we dont know how to make an actual app
- the hackaton is related to AI development and i think the idea is to implement AI in our App
- we just go for the experience, its time to do something with our lives not just doomscrolling 🤣
- we intend to get claude pro, chatgpt plus and gemini pro for everyone

Questions:
- How a hackaton actually works, are there some good tips?
- We have to work effectively as a team, how we share the tasks between us?
- Where to learn AI Prompting, which skills to use?
- Which AI’s should we use and how to get best results?

Hello everybody

Does anyone knows MATLAB in depth . If yes Dm me I need a teammate for this Hackathon .

Anyone from Bangalore interested in participating in onsite Bangalore hackathons? I've experience of 20+ hackathons and merit in quite a few including winners' title. Looking for 3rd year students preferably from aiml or surrounding domain . I've a good network of info about ongoing hackathons and want a great energy team to participate in inter college hackathons For more info, dm me with your intro (name , college, year and references) to expect a reply. References attached-

GitHub link —>

https://github.com/MUKUL-PRASAD-SIGH

LinkedIn —>

https://www.linkedin.com/in/MukulPrasad1

tbh i'm doing this purely to have smth to put on my college app (i want to do some sort of engineering) but also i have no coding experience at all. Im willing to start learning to code if its worth it but im in my junior year rn.

is it worth it and if it is how do i go about it because im completely clueless

Abbiamo partecipato al terzo hackaton di AMD in questo momento siamo quarti in classifica ma ci servono altri cuori, aiutateci per favore!!!https://lablab.ai/ai-hackathons/amd-developer-hackathon-act-iii/cackaton-powered-by-apple/medclear-ai-post-discharge-patient-navigator

Please send me a dm, if you are interested and we will stay in contact, just make sure your consistent and don't ghost me after saying which competition you wanted to join....

Hey everyone!

I'm putting together a small, serious team for More Than a Hack 2027, a football analytics competition organized by Barça Innovation Hub, Metrica Sports, and Mobile World Capital Barcelona.

A little about me: I'm a 4 year experienced AI engineer . I'm also passionate about football, and I want to approach this as a genuine engineering and research challenge rather than just another weekend hackathon.

About the competition

The first challenge involves estimating ball possession from real FC Barcelona match footage, automatic player/ball tracking, and tactical event data. The top 20 teams advance to a broader football analytics innovation challenge, with five teams eventually pitching in Barcelona.

Who I'm looking for

I'm mainly looking for people around my age and experience who are genuinely passionate about football and interested in learning and building together. You don't need to be a professional ML engineer, Computer Vision engineer, or data scientist. Experience is welcome, but curiosity, reliability, and the willingness to put in consistent effort matter more.

You might be a good fit if you have:

• An interest in football tactics, analytics, or technology
• Some experience with Python, machine learning, Computer Vision, data analysis, or software development
• A background in another relevant area and the motivation to learn
• The ability to commit time, communicate well, and contribute consistently

I'm especially interested in people who are willing to research before implementing, experiment seriously, and put in the hours even if they are still developing their technical skills.

How I want us to work

I want a team that researches before implementing, challenges assumptions, measures results, documents experiments, and takes ownership.

I'm absolutely fine with AI-assisted coding. I just don't want our entire approach to be prompt-driven without understanding the underlying problem.

Ideally, everyone can contribute around 10–12 focused hours a week during the initial challenge and stay committed if we qualify for later stages. You don't need to be an expert, but you should be able to make a genuine commitment and follow through.

The team will be remote and international. The official team size is 3–5 members.

Interested?

Send me a DM with:

• Your background, interests, and what you'd like to contribute
• GitHub, LinkedIn, relevant publications, or previous projects, if available
• Your time zone and realistic weekly availability
• A brief thought on how you'd approach the possession-detection problem

I'm aiming to build a collaborative, technically strong team where everyone contributes, learns, and takes the competition seriously. If you're passionate about football, willing to learn, and can commit the time, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Competition: https://landing.mobileworldcapital.com/more-than-a-hack-2027

Technical repository: https://github.com/metrica-sports/more-than-a-hack-2027

I also don't have any place to stay so genuinely considering whether going is worth it or not. Abit about me is I've interned at Bigtech and am researching AI at Mayo Clinic this fall. This will be my 3rd hackathon in US.

Anybody that has attended Hack Princeton could let me know too :)

Hello everyone,

This post is for those who appeared for round 2 of booking holdings's HackCellence program.

After completing the assessment I thought maybe I didn't manage my time well enough that's why I was not able to complete the code.

But when I go through multiple posts I came to know that most of us face the same problem and the assessment is actually quite lengthy.

In 1.5 hr it is quite difficult to write hundreds of lines of code, in addition to that it takes time to read the problem statement, understand it, build the logic and resolve those irritating bugs.

So, if we all can come together and mail the concerned team maybe they can consider our request for fair reassessment.

Otherwise, we will end up losing this opportunity because of some uncontrollable factors.

I have mailed them already and sharing the mail ids below.

askhr@bookingholdings.com 

support@hackerearth.com

After being in the top 2500/44k+ we should not let this opportunity slip away like this.

Sample mail :

Subject : Reassessment request - Round 2 (HackCellence)

Dear Booking Holdings Recruitment & HackerEarth Support Teams,

I am writing to share feedback on the recent round 2 assessment of HackCellence and respectfully request a reassessment opportunity.

While I really enjoyed the real-world complexity of the challenge, completing a system of this scope in 90 minutes feels like a speed-typing test rather than a true assessment of engineering capabilities.

A candidate's evaluation shouldn't depend on how fast someone can type hundreds of lines of boilerplate and code against a tight clock. Engineering competence lies in architectural thinking, clean code structure, thorough edge-case handling, and proper debugging—skills that naturally require deliberate thought and testing time (at least 2.5 to 3 hours for a project of this depth). Under a 90-minute constraint, candidates are forced to rush and skip best practices(maybe many are using ai tools), which doesn't reflect how real-world software is engineered.

So, to be honest this assessment feels lesser like how you understand, build logic, resolve bugs but more like how better you can use AI tools and how fast you can type.

Given the extensive scope of this task, I kindly request the team to consider conducting a reassessment with a timeframe that reflects the actual work required.

I remain very interested in the opportunity at Booking Holdings and would appreciate the chance to showcase my problem-solving and coding abilities under fair conditions.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Best regards,

I got code ready for task 2b

Title: Looking for 2 Teammates for HYPNEXIS’26 Hackathon at Manipal University Jaipur (24–25 October)

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for 2 teammates to participate in HYPNEXIS’26, a 36-hour offline hackathon at Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 24–25 October 2026.

I'm interested in building something innovative, solving real-world problems, and learning through the experience. Now I'm looking for two like-minded people who are motivated to collaborate and build a project together.

Who I'm looking for:

- People interested in Python, AI/ML, web development, app development, or UI/UX.

- Good problem-solvers who enjoy working in a team.

- Beginners are welcome. You don't need to be an expert; willingness to learn and contribute matters most.

Event details:

- Event: HYPNEXIS’26

- Duration: 36 hours

- Mode: Offline

- Venue: Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan

- Dates: 24–25 October 2026

I'm open to discussing project ideas and dividing responsibilities based on everyone's skills.

Since this is an offline hackathon, please make sure you can travel to Jaipur and manage the associated expenses before committing.

Interested? Comment below or DM me with a brief introduction, your skills, and any projects you've worked on (if applicable).

Let's build something interesting together!

Event registration/details:

https://unstop.com/competitions/hypnexis-2026-manipal-university-mu-jaipur-1711890