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5 Reasons Why Aspiring Data Scientists Should Join Hackathons in 2021

Even if you have little coding or development skills

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

I recently participated in my first hackathon which was a highly positive experience despite my initial worries. I had little to no software engineering or development experience coming into it. And I always believed hackathons were reserved for tech gurus who knew a lot more about full-stack development and product creation than I did.

However, I was wrong. I brought much more value to the event than expected, and even more that I walked away with.

What is a Hackathon?

A hackathon is a time-restrictive event where programmers and others collaborate to program and develop a solution to a specific theme or issue presented by the event hosts. The theme can be broad or very specific allowing for open creativity and/or precise focus. Participants are usually encouraged to formulate the problem, propose their unique solution, and build a prototype or proof of concept at the end around that solution.

Hackathons are designed to bring together the best skills of a team, both technical and soft skills.

As a data scientist or analyst, some of the skills you may traditionally bring are building models, executing SQL queries, producing data visualizations or reports, cleaning & manipulating data, and communicating with business stakeholders.

While programming may aid in these tasks, many new data scientists coming from academia today in 2021 don’t usually have strong development experience at their core. Programming is often just a tool in their toolbox they use in their day-to-day work but not necessarily part of a holistic end-to-end solution.

For similar reasons, hackathons may seem intimidating to them. But they should not be hesitant because the benefits outweigh the worries.

Instead, here’s why I encourage more aspiring data scientists to participate in hackathons.

Realistic Working Environment

Traditionally, Data Science learners tend to work alone. Up to 80% of your time on a project is spent on data preprocessing and wrangling. And often before that or during academia, you’ve probably poured hours into studying machine learning algorithms and their math under the hood. All of these are fairly individual tasks.

However, most real-world projects in the business world don’t work that way. You don’t work alone. You work with other team members instead. Collaboration from cross-functional teams is needed whether you are using data pipelines, deploying models, or managing front-end ML tools.

Photo by Leon on Unsplash
Photo by Leon on Unsplash

A hackathon is a great opportunity to collaborate with others and work on a real-world project. Although the time is short and you would never take a product from development to deployment that quickly in the real world, you get to at least understand the overall workflow for actually building a product or solution.

Skill-set Expansion

In the past 15 years, the career interest and appeal of data science has skyrocketed. As a result, the range of skillsets for junior data science positions has changed. Many companies in the industry want folks that possess core engineering skills as modeling becomes more automated.

This is why many software engineers may transition to data science roles easily and why many industry experts give the advice to pick up production and deployment skills. In other words, having experience with building, supporting, or understanding end-to-end solutions can be highly valuable.

Knowing how to load a dataset in from Kaggle or how to calculate some model accuracy metrics at the end is only a small piece of the bigger picture.

Working alongside front-end developers, software engineers, data engineers, and scrum masters in a hackathon gives you the opportunity to learn from others and practice new skills in a low-risk environment. Low-risk meaning you won’t be costing the company money or wasting their time.

Think From A Business Perspective

Data scientists/analysts are hired to create business value, not just run models. Domain knowledge is a critical component in their core toolbox. Everything they do should be driven with the business objective in mind.

In Hackathons, most participants are eager to build stuff and immediately dive into the tech. That is a mistake. Just like in a real business setting, you should start off thinking about the business value of your solution alongside the implementation. Your chances of success will be higher.

Additionally, hackathons require you to think about the value proposition and return on investment for your stakeholders, in this case, the judges or business who will be evaluating your solution.

The best ideas are often the ones where the solution is simple, innovative, easy to implement, and relatively low-risk to the business.

I once participated in a business case contest and my team was the only one to build a complex mobile app prototype which we demoed live. Our presentation was by far the coolest and best among the teams! The result? We didn’t win. A team with a simple, innovative, and feasible solution did.

Participating will allow you to play devil’s advocate and anticipate questions or concerns that judges may have. This way you can put yourself in the shoes of your stakeholders to prepare the most valuable and feasible solution while being aware of the risks that exist.

Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize!

As mentioned, the goal of a hackathon is to create a functional product in an extremely short period of time. It’s all about limited time, limited resources, and limited physical and mental energy. Often, these events run 24 hours meaning limited sleep and exhaustion can occur. Regardless, you’ll feel great pressure and stress at times. This is where prioritization is crucial.

Success requires prioritization, which means not only deciding what comes first but also when to stop. Team members might find themselves getting stuck too much on one specific task or challenge. Or they may simply be trying to add too many features or functionalities outside of the original plan and scope. These are all challenges you may encounter in the workplace.

The best way to overcome these hurdles in the hackathon is to assign a team member to be the project manager or scrum master. They can ensure the team is on track to have something finished by the end of the event time. A working, but not fully fleshed product, is better than no product at all. It also speaks to your ability to work as a team effectively and deliver under stress, both of which are highly valuable in the workplace.

Networking

Without a doubt, hackathons are a great way for companies to hire new employees or for participants to network. People get to see exactly how well you work in a team, your ability to handle tight deadlines and pressure, and how you use your skills and drive to achieve a common goal. This is a lot more than any interview would show them.

One of my software engineering friends recently attended a hackathon where he used computer vision machine learning algorithms in his team’s product solution. He had no prior experience with computer vision. Regardless, he was impressive enough that one of the Hackathon’s sponsors offered him the opportunity to come work for their startup. There are countless other similar stories out there from Hackathon participants.

Additionally, meeting other like-minded innovative individuals whether it’s a participant or one of the event hosts, can help you down the road in the future. This can be in the form of being referred to new roles, learning of opportunities at their company, and even receiving recommendation references. The power of networking is often visible at times when you least expect it.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, by now you realize the value that data scientists and analysts can get out of a hackathon.

If nothing else resonated with you, attend a hackathon simply for the experience and opportunity to learn. Whether you believe it or not, you do have skills and positive benefits to offer to a team because you will bring a unique perspective.

If you’re worried about having absolutely zero coding experience, try to pair up with teammates that complement your skills or ask the hackathon hosts if you could be paired with those types of skilled participants that you want to learn or work alongside.

Ready to join a hackathon immediately? Here are some upcoming ones in 2021. Good luck out there!

5 Data Science Hackathons to Grow and Improve Your Skills


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