If you have spent any time interacting with artificial intelligence over the last couple of years, you are probably familiar with the standard routine. You type a prompt into a text box, wait a few seconds, and receive a neatly formatted block of text in response. It is neat, it is helpful, but frankly, it is starting to feel a little bit dated.

We are officially moving past the era of generic chat windows and simple question and answer interfaces. The industry focus has shifted aggressively toward agentic AI, where models do not just answer questions, but actively execute tasks, call APIs, and solve complex business problems autonomously.

To accelerate this transition, Devpost has launched a massive new hackathon boasting US$75,000 in total prizes. It is designed specifically to push software engineers away from basic prompt engineering and toward building fully functional, multi-step autonomous agents.

The rise of autonomous agents

For a while there, building an AI application simply meant putting a slick user interface on top of a standard LLM API. You would ask the bot to write a resume or draft an email, and it would do so with varying degrees of success. While that was impressive in 2023, modern businesses require systems that actually perform work without needing constant human handholding.

Agentic AI represents a complete departure from that old interactive paradigm. An agentic system receives a high-level goal, breaks that goal down into logical sub-tasks, evaluates its own progress, and uses external software tools to achieve the desired outcome. Instead of merely telling you how to fix a software bug, an agentic system inspects the codebase, writes the patch, runs unit tests, and submits a pull request.

This hackathon forces developers to think in terms of real operational workflows rather than superficial chat interactions. If your entry simply waits for a user to type a question and spits out a paragraph of text, you are missing the brief entirely. The goal here is to construct autonomous software that delivers tangible, end-to-end commercial value.

Major tech giants rely on Devpost

If you are not an active software developer, the name Devpost might not immediately ring a bell. In the world of software development and engineering challenges, however, Devpost is essentially the undisputed home stadium for hackathons. It is the premier global platform where software engineers gather to build, showcase, and compete for serious cash and recognition.

Virtually every major tech company on Earth uses Devpost to host their flagships developer challenges. Industry giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon Web Services regularly run global competitions on the platform to drive early adoption of their latest tools. When these companies launch new APIs or cloud architecture frameworks, they turn to Devpost to get real code written by real developers.

Because of this reputation, a winning project on Devpost carries genuine industry clout. It is not just about bragging rights among peers; it is a proven launchpad for career advancement, startup funding, and direct exposure to engineering executives at top-tier tech companies.

A US$75,000 prize pool breakdown and cash incentives

Let us talk about the money, because a total prize pool of US$75,000, which translates to around A$115,000 for Australian participants, is nothing to sneeze at. Hackathon organisers know that to attract top-tier global talent, the financial incentive needs to match the required effort.

The cash distribution is structured to reward technical excellence at the top while still offering substantial rewards down the leaderboard. The absolute first place winner will walk away with US$7,500 in cold hard cash. Second place receives a respectable US$4,500 cash payment, while third place takes home US$3,000 in cash for their efforts.

Additional cash prizes, honorable mentions, and secondary tier rewards continue down the list for runner-up categories and specialized builds. For developers who are already tinkering with autonomous agents in their spare time, this creates a lucrative opportunity to turn weekend side projects into actual bank account deposits.

Why Australian developers are fully eligible to compete

Global competitions like this often come with fine print that leaves local builders out in the cold. It is reasonably common to see trade restrictions, local gaming laws, or sanction lists exclude developers from dozens of regions around the world.

The great news for local tech enthusiasts is that Australia is explicitly on the list of eligible participating countries. Aussie coders, university students, and veteran software engineers are completely free to register, build, and claim their share of the prize pool.

Whether you are working out of a dedicated tech hub in Sydney or Melbourne, or hacking together code from a home office in regional Victoria, you stand on equal footing with every other participant globally. As long as you fulfill the general age and eligibility criteria, your submission will be judged on pure engineering merit.

Rules of engagement and team size requirements

Before you jump into your favorite code editor and start hammering out repository files, it pays to understand the structural boundaries set by the organisers. Hackathons are fast-paced events, but failing to adhere to the core submission rules is the easiest way to get your project disqualified.

Participants can choose to tackle the challenge as a solo builder or assemble a team. If you decide to collaborate, the maximum allowable team size is strictly capped at four eligible individuals. This four-person limit keeps the playing field balanced, preventing massive agency teams or corporate departments from swamping smaller independent software groups.

Every member of your team must be registered on the official portal prior to the final project submission deadline. Additionally, all code submitted must respect intellectual property requirements, and teams are expected to build their solutions during the designated hackathon window rather than submitting pre-existing commercial products.

Judging criteria

When it comes to evaluating submissions, the judging criteria for this hackathon leaves little room for vague pitch decks or flashy marketing smoke and mirrors. Projects will be dissected based on technical execution, user experience, potential business impact, and overall creative innovation.

Judges want to see clean architecture that demonstrates true agentic behavior. That means your system must show clear reasoning steps, effective tool usage through external integrations, and robust error recovery when something in the execution chain goes wrong. A pretty interface with broken backend logic will not survive the evaluation process.

It is worth highlighting that the complete panel of individual judges has not been officially revealed just yet. The full line-up of industry experts and engineering leaders will be announced soon on the platform portal. For now, participants should focus on aligning their builds directly with the published scoring rubrics at the bottom of the event page.

2,206 participants and counting

At the time of writing, there are already 2,206 registered participants locked in and ready to compete. In the context of online developer competitions, that is a massive number of engineers vying for the top spot. It signals both the immense interest in agentic AI and the high level of competition you can expect when final entries are submitted.

The good news is that you still have time to organize your thoughts and execute a plan. There are currently 38 days remaining until the official submission deadline passes. That provides a generous window to form a team, map out your system architecture, build a functional prototype, and record a polish-packed video demo.

Thirty-eight days might feel like a long time on paper, but software engineering has a funny way of eating up calendar days faster than expected. Setting up API connections, handling edge cases, testing agent decisions, and editing a compelling project showcase video will quickly consume those available weeks.

How to register and take your shot at the crown

If you are a developer looking to sharpen your skills on the absolute bleeding edge of artificial intelligence, this challenge is precisely where you should be spending your time. The shift toward agentic software is not a temporary industry trend; it is the fundamental trajectory of enterprise technology over the coming decade.

Building a project for this hackathon gives you a structured environment, clear constraints, and a tight deadline to force real learning. Even if you do not walk away with the US$7,500 top cash prize, you will emerge with a working agentic application in your portfolio that proves you know how to build modern software.

Head over to the platform, read through the resource documentation, explore the available developer APIs, and start brainstorming with your team. The clock is officially ticking down, the competition is growing daily, and the future of autonomous AI is waiting to be built.

For more information, head to Devpost

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