If you say so. Ive worked at software engineering for almost 20 years, and not once have I ever had to put together new features during "Friday night hackathons." The addendum of "Pizza and beer are commonly seen food items at these events" also came across as pretty hilarious to me.
I don't know what to tell you.. I've done consulting for 22 years as a software engineer/architect.. and over the last 5-6 years, hackathons have become relatively common place. In the last year I've worked with/for 3 companies that all did them on occasion at various scales. My consulting firm does them as well internally; we do random hackathons for the purpose of learning, or sometimes as a way to build something we submit to present at a conference. They have a theme or purpose.. maybe it's choosing between 2-3 techs, maybe it's just something fun.. maybe it's trying out ideas for a new feature, etc.
Sometimes a single day, maybe 2.. sometimes spread out over the course of a month or so as something you do here or there and then meet about once or twice.
Most common at actual tech companies, those that make software and services for a living.. less common at companies who have IT department developers.
The entirety of Valve is basically based on this concept lol... normally would just be an every once in a while thing though.
www.unrealengine.com
