01-07-2025
11 years of innovation: PubMatic's 2025 Hackathon
Innovation lies at the heart of PubMatic's culture. For over a decade, the company's internal hackathon has been a springboard for bold experimentation, collaborative energy, and transformative ideas. This year marked the 11th edition of the PubMatic Hackathon, held on May 6–7, and it proved to be the company's biggest and most impactful yet.
Cross-functional collaboration at unprecedented scale
This year's hackathon saw enthusiastic participation from across the organisation - from Engineering and Product to Business Operations and Client Services. With 100 teams and over 420 participants, the event stood out for both its scale and the diversity of perspectives involved.
A key driver of success was the cross-functional collaboration. Teams combined design, development, product strategy, and business operations to craft solutions that were not only technically sound but also practical, scalable, and ready for real-world deployment.
Over an intensive 48 hours, teams ideated, built, and presented their prototypes to a panel of judges. The quality, polish, and creativity on display set a new benchmark, making the judging process more challenging than ever.
Spotlight on three strategic themes
This year's hackathon centred on three strategic areas shaping the future of the industry:
1. Generative AI: Transforming experiences
The rising adoption of Generative AI (Gen-AI) was unmistakable. Over 56% of all projects harnessed Gen-AI technologies - a powerful indicator of how rapidly this capability is becoming central to innovation.
To put the scale into perspective: in just seven days, teams transacted a staggering 331.3 million tokens, averaging 47 million tokens per day. From faster prototyping to more intelligent outputs, Gen-AI was a catalyst for accelerated innovation.
Participants explored a wide range of tools and frameworks, including:
Gen AI-powered IDEs that streamlined development workflows
Models from OpenAI and Gemini, tailored for advanced reasoning
Agentic frameworks for building fast, autonomous prototypes
From intelligent recommendation engines and AI-driven analytics to automated support tools, many of the Gen-AI-enabled ideas were not just futuristic - they addressed real, immediate challenges. PubMatic continues to embed Gen-AI across its ecosystem to create smarter platforms, automate workflows, and enhance customer experiences.
2. Monetisation: Unlocking new value streams
Several teams focused on revenue optimisation - exploring ways to unlock greater value for customers and partners. Whether it was through refined bidding strategies or yield optimisation models, the goal was clear: drive measurable business outcomes through technology.
3. Observability: Building trust and transparency
High-performing systems require deep visibility. This year, teams focused on elevating system observability to ensure greater transparency, reliability, and performance. From proactive monitoring to advanced alerting and diagnostics, the projects reflected a strong engineering culture centered on operational excellence.
Looking ahead
The 2025 Hackathon was a reminder of what drives PubMatic forward year after year: the pursuit of innovation through collaboration. It's not just about building great technology - it's about nurturing a culture that celebrates curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
As the ideas from this year's hackathon begin to take shape in real-world implementations, PubMatic looks forward to its role in shaping the future of digital advertising. Head to
PubMatic's Careers Page
to check out open roles in engineering and beyond.
