ConTech Debrief

Does the AEC Industry Need a Hacker Culture? by Pierce Reynoldson, AIA

(If you haven’t already, check out Phil Epifano's post for a full event recap.)

I love Hackathons - participating or just observing. It’s a competition, but the vibe in the room is one of camaraderie around building and problem solving.

At last week’s Contech Alliance Hackathon, I thought about my very first hackathon, which was also Thornton Tomasetti’s first open hackathon in 2013. As I recall, the early TT hackers were largely full-time AEC professionals with varying levels of coding and scripting skills, mostly building custom design tools for AEC firms. Over the years, many of those early hackathon participants exited traditional AEC careers to found or join AEC startups—some based on their hackathon projects.

In last week’s hackathon, the participants were all professional programmers vying to solve problem statements provided by three Contech startups—all founded by former AEC professionals. Besides the $5,000 prize, these developers were drawn by the opportunity to add Contech to their resume and get the attention of hiring Contech startups.

Hacking the AEC

It is notable that one Hackathon can produce more viable digital prototypes in a weekend than most mid-size to large firms produce in months, if not years. Moreover, unlike AEC firms, hackathon prototypes can be rapidly developed and deployed into startup platforms, theoretically within months.

Obviously, Hackathons and AEC firms operate under fundamentally different paradigms. Hackathons are designed for speed and innovation, free from the typical constraints that slow down ideation and development. They can somewhat ignore organizational guardrails, data governance, technical debt, approvals, and long term costs–all that comes later. Their goal is to create a safe space for hyper speed prototyping.

AEC firms, on the other hand, are built for stability not speed. Their priority is to maintain safe, reliable IT infrastructure at minimal cost, which makes sense for an industry where risk tolerance is low and indirect costs are competitive. By design, this structure hinders rapid software changes. To be clear, that’s actually a good thing. “Move fast and break things” is not a slogan anyone wants to hear from the firm designing and/or building a bridge. And for most of the corporate world “hacks” are those emails IT is regularly warning about.

The Dev Great Basin

Unfortunately, stability exacerbates the AEC’s digital divide by hindering the attraction and retention of inhouse development talent. The aforementioned hackers turned startup entrepreneurs indicate a dev pipeline leading out of the AEC arena. Thus, the industry faces a widening skills gap, an even wider digital skills gap, and a gulf like developer skills gap—where in-house development has all but disappeared, outsourced to big tech and startups.

I always leave a hackathon thinking: This was so special … but why does it have to be? These events are not prohibitively expensive—just space, Wi-Fi, food, a big novelty check. There could be more of them, more often, and they could occur inside AEC firms.

The real opportunity isn’t just in hackathons but in what they represent—sandboxes for innovation where new ideas can emerge, iterate, and, critically, gain traction. If the AEC wants to close the dev gulf, it must embrace those spaces where rapid development isn’t just possible but expected.

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Pierce Reynoldson, AIA is a technologist and educator for the AEC industry. As the Vice President of Technology & Innovation at Entech Engineering, he oversees one of the largest VDC teams in the US. Pierce serves on the Contech Leadership Council at Contech Alliance. He also teaches Entrepreneurship at Columbia University School of Civil Engineering and previously taught BIM at the Yale University School of Architecture.

Contech Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to driving positive change in the construction industry by fostering innovation, collaboration, and education. We serve as an unbiased platform where industry professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, and facility owners come together to share ideas, exchange knowledge, and embrace emerging technologies. Our global network spans the entire value chain—encompassing architects, engineers, general and trade contractors, facility owners, and more—uniting stakeholders around a common goal: accelerating the adoption of cutting-edge solutions that revolutionize how we design, build, operate, and maintain our built environment.

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