At Asurion, hackathons turn bold ideas into solutions that improve how millions of people live and work with technology every day. They give engineers, product managers, designers, and others the chance to step away from their daily work and solve big problems at startup speed. With executive sponsorship and cross-functional support, ideas move quickly from concept to outcome, often with a path to production. The commitment is significant, but the innovation and learning prove why hackathons are central to our culture.

What makes our hackathon different

Executive sponsorship that unlocks speed: Leaders don't just cheer from the sidelines. They show up, clear roadblocks, and sponsor pilots when ideas show promise.
Best-idea-wins culture: Titles and tenure take a back seat. Whether you're a new grad or a principal engineer, your voice matters.
Startup energy, big company platform: Teams work in fast cycles, with quick feedback and autonomy. This is backed by the scale and stability of shipping solutions that impact millions of customers.

Inside the hackathon: from problem to prototype

Over three days, the teams began by defining a problem statement and agreeing on what success would look like. From there, they moved quickly into validation and prototyping. By the final day, the focus shifted to storytelling – turning demos into clear messages about customer value and business relevance.

At an Asurion hackathon, participation is intentionally cross-functional. Engineers, product managers, designers, data scientists, AI specialists, solutions architects, sales enablement managers, and testers across voice and digital all contribute. Teams use a modern toolkit that includes generative AI (voice, vision, LLM/RAG), multi-agent orchestration for complex tasks, and cloud-native services to iterate quickly and reliably.

The event felt more like an efficient product sprint than a competition – practical, focused, and aimed at building lasting solutions beyond the hackathon.

First-time team builds winning AI chatbot builder

A team of four first-time participants built the solution that judges awarded first place. They created a no-code platform that enables non-engineers to create, configure, and deploy an LLM-powered chatbot in minutes instead of weeks.

Built with Asurion’s core values in mind, this solution establishes a reusable, governed approach for more thoughtful engagement at scale – accelerating time to launch, broadening coverage, and freeing engineers to focus on more complex challenges. Leaders were so impressed that they discussed bringing the solution to production.

Meet the winning team

Bailey V., product manager. “Working at the speed hackathons require was new and exciting. I also collaborated with someone I wouldn’t have otherwise — a great first hackathon experience.”

Gabe A., software engineer.“It was fun to build something for the sake of building, without a direct plan to launch, and experiment with tools outside the day-to-day stack.”

Zak S., software engineer. “This was a memorable first hackathon—my midnight Slack chats with Bassim carried me through. After working with my team, I think differently when navigating obstacles in my current work.”

Bassim E., ML engineer. “When they announced we won, I said in Slack, ‘ngl, did not expect that.’ It’s a hackathon I’ll never forget.”

This year also marked the first time a non-engineer team stood on the podium. Their partner intelligence platform—which centralized research and automated brief creation—earned the Showstopper award, proving that titles and coding experience take a back seat to customer-focused solutions.

Turning hackathon projects into real solutions

At Asurion, promising ideas don’t gather dust. Past hackathon winners have shipped solutions into production—last year’s winning team built a new internal training and operations tool, and this year's could follow the same path. The pattern is consistent: provide space, guidance, modern tools, invite broad perspectives, and watch the ideas pour in.

If you value modern tools, rapid iteration, and meaningful impact, Asurion offers the platform to push boundaries and shape what's next. Explore open engineering and product roles here.

FAQs

How do hackathons support career growth?

Hackathons bring Asurion employees together across roles and regions, allowing them to test new skills, collaborate outside their daily teams, and work on projects that can shape the future of customer experience. Many participants say the experience shifts how they approach challenges in their regular work.

Are hackathon projects ever launched into production?

Yes. Asurion's hackathons are designed to move quickly from idea to outcome. Several past winning projects have gone into production, and this year's winning solution is already being considered for real-world use.

How does the hackathon reflect Asurion's culture?

It shows Asurion’s engineering culture in action: customer-first problem solving, collaboration across regions, and a focus on turning ideas into lasting impact.

How can I learn more about career opportunities at Asurion?

If you're inspired by how our innovators work, you can explore open roles on our careers site. From engineering to product and data science, we're always looking for curious problem-solvers who want to build what's next.