I'm writing this more than a month after the xAI Hackathon. In between, I've been caught up with finals and a project I've been working on over winter break (more to come soon).
However, I still remember my xAI Hackathon experience distinctly. To list everything you proabably expected from reading this:
- I met so many smart, cool, like-minded, ambitious developers at the Hackathon. Everyone I talked to was incredibly nice and welcoming, and I learned so much just from casual chats.
- I built an extremely fun project with Anmol Singh (feel free to check it out in my projects section).
- The food was awesome, including a meal from 3-star Michelin chef Christopher Kostow.
- Coming from Michigan: the weather in the Bay. Wow.
Now, for a bit of a deeper insight. The progress of AI coding blew me away. This was the first time I'd extensively used Opus 4.5 with Claude Code, and it's ability to one-shot features made me very hesistant and concerned about the future of SWE, at least the majority of entry-level SWE roles. Of course, I'm just a Computer Science student at the moment, so take my insights with less than a grain of salt. However, talking to some of the much more experienced developers at the Hackathon, never hearing a "stay in software, you will be fine", didn't help. There didn't seem to be a lot of confidence in entry-level SWE. Admittedly however, AI developement is also very exciting. Developing software has never been easier, faster or cheaper. Even if it's not a (prevalent) job in the future, developing software will probably be an amazing hobby.
I read something on X just a couple days ago that analogized software development with photography. I usually hear about the calculator analogy, but this is different. When the camera became mainstream, photography as a full-time role decreased, but it meant that everyone now could have the ability to take pictures. Maybe AI will have the same effect, maybe it'll be a calculator, or maybe it'll be something completely new.
I just wish I could teleport a year into the future to see how far AI has progressed. But looks like I'll just have to wait.
Below is a picture of me next to the xAI logo:
