Hackathons have recently garnered significant research interest. Hackathon teams frequently include developer, business, and designer roles, yet the designer role and experience of design in hackathon teams are poorly understood. In this paper, we present findings from ten interviews with designer hackathon participants. A thematic analysis reveals that the responsibilities of designers at hackathons roughly align with more typical design contexts, although the format of hackathon events forces designers to adapt approaches to design. Hackathon participants value teams with diverse skills, including design skills, yet designers face resistance from peers in developer roles when seeking to use established design methods for validating needs and generating solutions. This tension can make designers feel unwelcome at hackathons, harming efforts to attract a more diverse participant pool.
