Hackathons are generally an excuse to get more work for less pay. No different than pagerduty or any number of other scams the technocracy has devised to drive wages down. People would be happy to do them if they'd get paid.
However, there's another problem. No one wants to work on "regular everyday" stuff for even a 9-5 M-F hackathon. I and many other people just call this "doing our job".
Sometimes there are fringe benefits where a company may allow engineers to actually work on something they enjoy. Maybe it's a new language, or a prototype, or anything. The key is it doesn't have to be related to company work. Unfortunately, as it has been my experience several times now, this benefit is the first to go and replaced instead with tyrannical PMs and sales people cracking the whip over the engineers to get a "fun hackathon project" done.
None of this would happen but software engineers do not identify themselves as laborers being exploited. Software engineers are, honestly, some of the smartest and absolute braindead people I've ever met. I can think of no other industry where someone could be convinced to do literally 5-figure level free work in exchange for 3 pizzas and a 6 pack.
Internal corporate hackathons are the exact opposite of free work. You are getting paid and you get to make something fun instead of something needed for business reasons.
However, there's another problem. No one wants to work on "regular everyday" stuff for even a 9-5 M-F hackathon. I and many other people just call this "doing our job".
Sometimes there are fringe benefits where a company may allow engineers to actually work on something they enjoy. Maybe it's a new language, or a prototype, or anything. The key is it doesn't have to be related to company work. Unfortunately, as it has been my experience several times now, this benefit is the first to go and replaced instead with tyrannical PMs and sales people cracking the whip over the engineers to get a "fun hackathon project" done.
None of this would happen but software engineers do not identify themselves as laborers being exploited. Software engineers are, honestly, some of the smartest and absolute braindead people I've ever met. I can think of no other industry where someone could be convinced to do literally 5-figure level free work in exchange for 3 pizzas and a 6 pack.