Company run hackathons go a lot father than you think for getting your first job

I mentor a lot of students in college getting their CS degree currently and found that the ones who were most successful had done 2 of 3 things

1. Leetcode (duh)

2. Go to a good school

3. Won company led challenges

Most people don't have the option for 2, and over-optimize for 1.

When I was an undergrad in college, the thing that ended up setting me apart from other students in my class (and school, I didn't go to an ivy league college but was competing on internships with ivy league cs students) was the company led challenges.

Years ago I did the Capital One Winter Summit https://www.capitalone.com/tech/culture/tech-internships-tackle-aws/ and partaking and "winning" in these events gives you a great, demo-able product with code to show employers and outside verification that a company wants to hire you. This got me a ton of internships at the big companies & startups in the bay area.

Many times the companies that host these events are really just trying to find talent to hire, so partaking in challenges ends up being a win win. You get an internship immediately, or you can use it as leverage to get another job. Make sure you are keeping an eye out for these types of challenges.

I don't know (?) If Capital One is still running these challenges but just saw that META is running one as well which was my inspiration for this post absolutely worth checking out. https://x.com/8vc/status/1898088747516006582