My experience being a developer with no developer community

https://medium.com/@Shruubi/my-experience-being-a-developer-with-no-developer-community-97e05834b727#.sf5nmq7g8

by shruubi • 10 years ago

97 65 10 years ago

pedalpete• 10 years ago

Looks like we have a lot in common Shruubi, but also many differences. I too am from a place without a developer community. A one-employer town of 10,000 people, and I too am a Canadians fan (well, I kinda have to be, I'm Canadian).

I think our similarities may end there. After teaching myself to program, and building some apps that got some good recognition, I decided to get more serious about this programming thing and move to a place which had a developer community. I moved to Sydney, Australia (after considering San Fran, I decided Bondi was a better combination of lifestyle and work for me).

Is it expensive here? Hell ya! But you have an advantage I didn't, you can interview, before you move! You can make contacts in Melbourne or Sydney, and don't forget Brisbane has a decent community too with much lower cost of living.

It may sound rough, but I think you need to HTFU (as Chopper would say).

Or, decide why you want to be in a place with a developer community? What do you look to gain from that?

If you're making less as a developer than you could at a grocery store (and you have an employer, you're not just trying to sell your own apps) than somebody is taking advantage of you, or you haven't done the math on what you're worth.

The only thing stopping you from 'break[ing] through the window and join[ing] in' is yourself.

Stop making excuses, and if you want to do it, just do it. If you don't I'd hazard to guess you'll regret it in the long run.

alexandercrohde• 10 years ago

Big deal man. I work in SF, at a unicorn, and most of the engineers I work with don't read HN or consider themselves a "community." They're just people who code for work and don't like to talk about it.

The HN community has nothing to do with physical location, you get to it by typing its URL into your browser, and you engage with it by posting thoughtful comments.

zuck9• 10 years ago

don't like to talk about it

I'm probably reading this wrong, but does that mean they aren't passionate about their job and do it just because it has a nice pay/etc.?

poloniculmov• 10 years ago

Or maybe they like to disconnect and talk about other stuff in their free time.

dempseye2• 10 years ago

Does that matter if they do their work properly?

Retric• 10 years ago

I have found passion rarly has much to do with talent in Tech. It's just a buzz word for, willing to be under paid and over worked becuase you have nothing better to do.

PS: When things are not going well, firing the energetic guy pulling 80 hour weeks may seem dumb. But sometimes it can make dramatic positive impact over time.

ftay• 10 years ago

You might not care about these opportunities but a lot of people not in SF don't have the plethora of meetups, tech talks with free food/drinks, etc where they can learn about cool new tech and that's really cool.

qw2• 10 years ago

Why don't you apply for a job in Melbourne and save up some money?

An hour commute isn't that long. I spent 4 hours a day on commuting for a few years before moving to my current city. It is definitely something you can live with for a short time.

thedudemabry• 10 years ago

As a self-admitted, lazy millenial, I have to call bullshit. Commuting 4 hours a day for a job, assuming that the job is 2 hours away, means devoting half of your ordinary-full-time hours to driving to a place to work.

Outliers are absolutely an option when attempting to gain an advantage, but the ability to work remotely is an outsized economic and work/life benefit for almost any company.

shoo• 10 years ago

commuting 4 hours a day sounds like a pretty rubbish lifestyle, but if that is what it takes for a few weeks / months to bootstrap out of a bad situation, then it is at least doable. commute, save money & build up a little work history, find a place to rent/share much closer to work.

i suspect many organisations here in melbourne (including some of the larger enterprise-y ones that pay developers quite well) are too disorganised / old-fashioned to consider remote workers.

qw2• 10 years ago

I am gen X, so I guess we are a bit tougher ;) And I only did this for a couple of years.

The commute was 1h20min by train, then 10min by bus. It took me 2 hours from door to door.

I know people in my office that has an 1.5h commute by train because they can not afford a house near the city for their wife and kids

finishingmove• 10 years ago

Word of advice: don't read a lot of HN and Reddit, especially not first thing in the morning. It can leave you feeling burned out and depressed.

Do your best to try and apply the things you've learned to your current job, and devote only some of your free time to stay up-to-date with things. Use the rest of your free time on some hobbies. This approach should boost your confidence in your abilities a bit. When the time comes that you feel especially inspired, use this to get into something like a hobby project or explore a new language.

Over time, dedication to learning will pay off, but you will also need to cross this barrier and say, "Hello, I'm Damon, and I'm actually pretty damn good at this thing.". A lot of advice on the internet says the best way to strike a good job is to be networked in the valley... as if everyone can just do that. So I feel your pain there, but it's still possible to break out if you keep your focus and don't let the circumstances get the better of you. You need to believe in yourself and build your self-esteem step by step.

So, work on bettering yourself (this includes self-esteem, health), instead of trying to get into "a circle".

noir_lord• 10 years ago

Word of advice: don't read a lot of HN and Reddit, especially not first thing in the morning. It can leave you feeling burned out and depressed.

I found this to be incredibly true, both communities (or at least a subset) have the ability to focus on the negative of pretty much anything, someone posts "I did awesome thing in X" and you'll get a few "great, thanks for posting this, it's really useful" and an ocean of "You shouldn't use X, X is bad and you should feel bad".

It can be mentally sapping if you don't have your guard up.

mclovinit• 10 years ago

This. Adversity makes or breaks. Even if it breaks, you can still rise from the ashes. It's best to not let unhealthy thoughts drive you forward. Small pet projects are great. Who cares if they take months to complete. Setup reminders for yourself to always keep your pet projects fun and reward yourself when you complete a small part. Making these associations is important. Otherwise, the exercise becomes pointless. I started out in my career with low self-esteem. Now even when I stand anywhere halfway between the shit and the fan, I can come out smelling like roses. This is especially true in groups which come with their own political challenges.

khedoros• 10 years ago

I live in a more-connected place, but the only real communities I've participated in are online. Granted, there's not the time zone difference, but being physically in the same place as other programmers hasn't ever felt like a priority to me.

Actually, that's not quite true. Conventions and meet-ups are great for networking, and the SCALE conference is how I found my first job back in 2008. But as a weekly thing? Meh.

In my current job, I'm much more on the "Ops" side of things, when I'd rather be in Dev, so I'm not getting my fix at work. I've had a series of hobby projects. I talk about them to friends, and that's always been enough for me. Everyone's different, though.

Maybe Australia's different, but if you got a job offer at a decent employer in the US, you could probably get some money for relocation costs, and even sometimes a hiring bonus that would tide you over in a new environment until you really got your footing. It sounds like where you are has limited opportunities for growth, anyhow. You're likely to need to leave at some point, if you'd like to remain a developer. It's something to think about, anyhow (although you know your situation better, and I'm sure you've thought through all the paths countless times).

andreapaiola3• 10 years ago

Well... I'm italian, I live in Turin and work in Milan as a web developer... which is 150 Kms away... so... I don't have much time for "the tech scene", meetup or "open-source".

Once upon a time in Turin there was FIAT and work... now not so much... but is a beatiful city.

_b8r0• 10 years ago

+1 for Turin being beautiful. I wondered what the tech scene was like when I was there, seems like the town isn't yet spoilt by tourism. I should go back.

andreapaiola3• 10 years ago

Tourism means also money...

anyway the tech scene is not big... there is the WordCamp https://2016.torino.wordcamp.org/ and the Politecnico http://www.polito.it/ with some startups http://www.i3p.it/

but not much work...

gshrikant• 10 years ago

Last I heard, Fiat (now FCA) was still headquartered in Turin. Isn't it now?

andreapaiola3• 10 years ago

yeah, but once upon a time there was Mirafiori

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mirafiori https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirafiori_Nord#Gli_anni_dell.2...

with thousands of workers... not much R&D tech but related...

nailer• 10 years ago

Geelong, at least ten years ago, has some super smart and friendly tech people at Deakin University. Could be worth checking out.

PS. Geelong is actually pretty beautiful. Try and buy your house if you can before the rest of Australia finds out.

voltagex_• 10 years ago

Oh man, LCAU was in Geelong this year - you should have come along. There's lots of people in your kind of situation - the "remote" community is great too.

See if you can make LCAU 2017 in Hobart, or more locally http://www.meetup.com/Geelong-Lean-Coffee/ looks promising.

shruubi• 10 years ago

Yeah, it was a conversation I had on Twitter that I realise was left out of this post, but I was unable to attend due to both my company not being willing to send me and myself not being able to afford it.

It was definitely heartbreaking as I had fully intended on going and had been looking forward to it for a long time.

erikpukinskis• 10 years ago

If you're not feeling welcome, aim at smaller communities. Do you like a programming language? Search for "Python User Group Seattle" or similar. Often they organize talks and snacks and people hang out afterward.

And the same thing applies online. You might find the Linux kernel mailing list fairly bristly, but what about the mailing list for the database query library that you use? Those smaller ponds are much more likely to appreciate a well written bug report or pull request. Is there something you don't like about one of the tools you use? Fix it. Or try to fix it and then ask for help.

And if you get burnt, move on. It's like dating, you can't guarantee that it's going to work out every time. If it goes bad it doesn't need to be a reflection on you or even on the community. It just means keep looking.

sorich87• 10 years ago

Have you tried working remotely ? I have faced a similar situation from 2006 to 2014: small city (even if the biggest in the country) in a small country (Benin) in West Africa, and I had been working remotely. I didn't participate in a community, but I least I had good wages (by US and Western Europe standards, which is a fortune here).

atemerev• 10 years ago

A perfect setting for geoarbitrage and working remotely.

(I am on the wrong side of this, living in the most expensive country in the world — Switzerland — without much tech scene).

marmaduke2• 10 years ago

I can relate to both post and other comments here to the tune of "so what", as I experience both depending on the part of the caffeine cycle I'm going through.

News nor community not the hacker maketh. It's the other way round. Imagine saying "I want to cook but after reading the recipe books and finding no one to cook with, I end up not cooking"? Wut? No way man, I'm hungry so I make myself dinner

And so it is with other creative work.

mbrock2• 10 years ago

I disagree. My fledgling interest in computers as a child led me towards hacking because of the communities I found (on IRC, mailing lists, Usenet, etc). Without these communities, I would probably have failed to learn, lost interest, and lacked inspiration.

marmaduke2• 10 years ago

Those communities provided social validation for your already existing interest, and that confirms my point that the news and community are the smoke and not fire of hacking as a creative pursuit.

everyone• 10 years ago

"the first thing I do once I get to work every day (after grabbing my source of caffeine), is open up HN and Reddit and catch up on whats new and whats happening in our industry."

Who has time for that?

nsainsbury• 10 years ago

I'm based out of Melbourne, Victoria and work from home! Shruubi, if you or anyone else in the area wants to catch up and talk dev, startups, or anything else hit me up at neil at rateitapp dot com

Let's get a community going! :-)

moron4hire2• 10 years ago

My experience being a developer who moved from an area with zero developer community to one with a very large one: things didn't magically get better.

Being on my own for so long forced me to be the sort of generalist that some people think doesn't exist or even shouldn't exist. I mean like morally, they act like some of my projects are an affront to humanity just because I like to keep my number of dependencies low. It makes it hard to interact with people who care more about what frameworks (yes, plural) you used than what problem you're solving.

chris_wot2• 10 years ago

They don't seem to be people I'd be too concerned with interacting with!

moron4hire2• 10 years ago

Uhm, generally speaking you are correct. But you run into a lot of them going out to meetups. I'm trying to build a business, I can't just lock myself away in my basement and code away anymore, I have to get out and meet people. My general experience has been that there is always at least one person in the crowd who will be incensed that you are not using Angular/Lowdash/Underscore/React/Haskell/a particular ORM/something other than an ORM/what-have-you.

There's a certain type of person that needs their personal choices validated by seeing the same choices made by other people. The name for this type of person is "the majority". It's how we get people who think Ford Mustangs are the greatest or shittiest car in the world, when they are neither. It's how we get people voting Demican or Republicrat every year, in every election, across the board. It's how we get people who only drink Bud Light. It's how we get people who think Age of Ultron was the greatest movie ever.

For as much as technology peoples like to think they are rational, thinking, open-minded people, we can tend to be extremely tribal.

I've personally found that the best way to avoid those people is to actually be more outgoing, to be friendly and inviting and just someone that everyone wants to hang out with. Because then you can't get stuck with these randos.

welanes• 10 years ago

I don't know whether your post was meant as a catharsis or an avenue for feedback. But here comes the feedback....

I can relate with your story. In the last two years I've been learning development while working in a business type role. Nobody at lunch gives a crap about webpack or Node.js, nor do my housemates, and while on dates I've concluded it's best not to bring up what items I've recently starred on Github.

So each day passes with a dozen unspoken conversations. That's absolutely fine, I've nobody to bounce my love of modern classical music off either.

That doesn't make me love those interests less. This right here is a community I'm part off, so is the 'Tech peeps I like' twitter list I follow, so are the comments below the newest codrops article, and the discussions on Github pull requests I made, and the developers I support on patreon.

Truth be told, having been to meetups, there's a good chance you're not missing a whole lot. "Hey isn't [topic of meetup] great?" "Yeah I really like [latest update]" "Me too" [beer consumed] "Great, bye".

I'm being flippant. The point is I think you're ignoring the community staring you in the face and while I understand your perspective you should realise that these barriers are mostly self-imposed. Anxiety, self-esteem issues and imposter syndrome won't disappear just because you're in the city or because a meetup is closer than a 1 hour train journey away.

So rather than assuming doors are closed before even trying to open them, why not apply for a job in the city, create a pull request and travel to that meetup in Melbourne, no matter how 'taxing'?

afro88• 10 years ago

I used to commute an hour for a job on the other side of London. Once you get used to it it's not that bad. My advice is to try and land a job in Melbourne and work that for 3-4 months to save up the money to move there.

bad_user• 10 years ago

“Well why not get involved in open-source”, I can only say back “I’d love to, but with timezone differences, strong personalities and incredibly low self-esteem I don’t feel like I’d really be welcome there.”

When it comes to many open-source projects, you've got people from all over the world participating, so time-zone isn't an issue. And most of us have strong personalities, yet low self-esteem and suffer from the impostor syndrome. That's the curse of being a human being. Some communities are more toxic than others. In some communities you've got jerks allowed to do whatever they want, like conducting personal attacks on other people. But most communities I interacted with are very friendly and civilized, most of them have a Code of Conduct as well. So if you had a bad experience, just remember that there are other communities out there far more welcoming.

As for steps of getting started, pick a project you could see yourself contributing to, find the communication channels (mailing lists, IRC, Gitter, Slack) and start asking questions and answering the questions of beginners, which is a painless way to start getting involved and meeting people. Sooner or later you'll find yourself submitting PRs on Github and saving money to participate at conferences only to meet your peers face to face.

ashitlerferad3• 10 years ago

Indeed, you are absolutely welcome in open source. Conferences are definitely a highlight.

sunshiney6• 10 years ago

Try being a 64-year-old female widow who lives alone, has worked online for 20 years, loves tech and discovered a fascination with programming and lives in...wait...a town of 400 that does not have a grocery store, coffee house or gas station. People say to me that most of the time they have no idea what I am talking about. Good news is we have fiber in this rural farm town filled with wealthy farmers. Meet ups I have avoided driving to because .well..I'd be the old person at the table and that makes me uncomfortable. I understand your words oh so well. Too well.

So.. I began learning about farming to see if there was an intersection between coding and farming. A Ted talk on that topic inspired me. Now I am trying to bring ag based technology projects here in order to stimulate interest in coding by conservative blue collar ag and worker types

Maybe my story will plant an idea within you!

Motomorgen• 10 years ago

Could you share which TED talk? My wife and I are about to buy a house with the hopes of turning the land into a permaculture food forest and I've been trying to find a way to leverage my development skills to bolster the farm skills as well!

mooreds3• 10 years ago

I have taken a couple of permaculture courses and am also a developer. The biggest synergy between the two is system thinking. In both domains, you are thinking at multiple levels of abstraction, bouncing back and forth between the high level design and low level implementation.

Highly recommended: Thinking in Systems: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/...

And the permaculture podcast covers a variety of interesting topics: http://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/

sunshiney6• 10 years ago

I chuckled when I read your ask. Here I have people who say "Ted Talks??" and that is followed with me now memorized elevator speech describing Ted Talks. It's refreshing to not have to explain.

The talk I watched a couple of times as I thought through bringing its message here is "This computer will grow your Food in the future." https://www.ted.com/talks/caleb_harper_this_computer_will_gr...

Very, very cool stuff. I want to get that into the K-12 school here (170 students) and recently renovated to the tune of $11 million, interestingly enough.

I also got a connection going with some start-up folks in Utah who are creating rural hubs to train and employ locals for remote opps in urban settings. They've got a 4-man team going that seems to be gathering steam. At least, they pant a lot when talking with them. :-)

And I also have been digging into 3D material advancements beyond plastic (thankfully happening) and robotic combines. One guy converted a John Deere combine using $6k into a driverless combine used in wheat fields.

The Ted Talk was particularly cool, though, because it demo'd how people in many aspects of tech had "become" farmers -- integrating their tech prowess with growing plants that feed.

I watched on C-span not long ago a panel talk on how Obama brought in private sector, highly skilled tech folks into a temporary program that is aimed at vastly overhauling/improving the tech aspects of the federal government. One of the leads said that after being at it awhile, he concluded that the biggest challenge was changing the culture.

That's hitting it on the nail head for me...same thing I have here.

My crazy ass vision is that when I see the congestion on highways, lack of neighborliness, poor air quality, lack of connection to nature (so important to me) versus the opposite features here that I believe people would be far happier, less stressed, kinder if they could live more rural -- despite present day shuffle to live urban. Now the vision is that if we could use tech and fiber to connect people with great paying jobs and up their skills at online marketing -- growth hacking, so to speak -- then maybe we could spread the burgeoning population out and over the land, rather than having it so concentrated in cities. I know that not everyone will find this lifestyle cool but there are those who do.

I can work all day and head down to a huge river 15 minutes away and fish all evening, think on what has happened during the day.. dream... and imagine.

I have been envisioning a tech center here where I would be able to mingle with people who talk my language and who are innovative. I want to have rural kids learning to code and to see how it can impact their rural farm lives...and that everyone need not leave for the city.

I live in this great place.. take a look at southviewliving.com to get a glimpse.

So...I know..I know.. I'm a crazy older woman. But ah well.. I still have way too much thrust and energy to waste it with things like retirement. :-)

Whatcha think?

mooreds3• 10 years ago

I too would love to know the inspiring Ted talk.

sunshiney6• 10 years ago

Hi! See what I posted to Motomorgen above -- while inhaling far too much java. Makes me talk/type too much. :-)

mooreds3• 10 years ago

Oh, and I can't imagine how isolating your situation mist be, so good on you for making lemonade out of those lemons.

For what it is worth, I really enjoy talking to folks with deep tech experience, and it seems the best way to get that is to have long, varied industry experience.

sunshiney6• 10 years ago

Hi you! it can be more frustrating than isolating. What's hard is always having to define everything and to find ways to explain why I love my world in a way that causes them to go "ahh, I get it." That's rough. But one success was a 93 year old woman who told me if she was 10 years younger, she'd be joining me in my efforts here. She's sharp as can be, zero health issues, handles a 2/3 acre lot nearly alone and is up at dawn to be on her feet, working all day at something. Amazing.

I feel the same as you re talking to folks with deep t. experience as it provides something different than what I have here. But hey, I landed in this town quite by accident rather than choice some 5 years ago and maybe I was planted here to create some disruption. hee hee..

ashitlerferad3• 10 years ago

Hacking around the DRM in tractors is a great example of that intersection.

sunshiney6• 10 years ago

Yes! Have you had any experiences with that?

Another area is parts. Farmers have time periods limited by weather/season to plant, fertilize, harvest. If a part goes awry, they can lose precious days and loads of green getting a part from across the country. I've heard the horror stories. I got to thinking..hmm.. could 3-D printing create a temp solution so they could use less expensive slower shipping of the permanent part?

And what about driveless equipment for the field work? What about programs that are based on recipes to know what the fields really need and when.

As wheat prices have plunged here, beef has become an income producer. Small herds -- freely grazed. Good stuff. But they cannot leave the farms when you have cattle. Hard to find people to care for your stock when you are gone. Could tech help? I think so.. but... how..

And what about more remote jobs for rural folks? Heck, we have fiber! Teach...and employ them with urban-based companies who are in need of tech help.

Too many ideas... I am likely crazy. I wish I knew! :-)

dustingetz• 10 years ago

This post helped me realize that all my big breakthroughs in understanding were triggered by conferences in USA, and before that, getting lucky and Interacting with the right people who I mostly met through meet ups (yeah philly lambda!) I am very proud of my open source works but none of it would have happened without the breakthroughs.

kstenerud• 10 years ago

I don't get it. When I was 14, hacking on a Commodore 64, I didn't know a soul around for miles who knew a thing about programming. I once pestered my chemistry teacher because rumor had it that he knew C. But I knew plenty of people on BBS and usenet forums. That was my developer community.

It's SOOOOOO much easier nowadays. Everything's at your fingertips. There are literally hundreds of communities a URL away. There are more tutorials than you can shake a stick at. You don't even need to special order books from obscure sellers and wait weeks for it to be in stock anymore! Hell, you can even video conference with people, doing hackathons over google hangouts!

In fact, that's the main reason why I've moved TO a small town. I work from remote, and live on a farm.

I don't mean to say "kids these days", but seriously...

DoofusOfDeath• 10 years ago

shruubi: If you want to share some more about the kind of development work you have been doing, and what you'd like to be doing, perhaps we can give you some concrete ideas for locations, companies, OSS projects, etc. that you should check out.

A few observations from my career so far (20 years in):

* Going for a Master's degree in CS can seriously improve your job prospects, and should make you a genuinely more awesome developer. (I'm not saying it's a necessary or sufficient requirement for awesomeness, but it's usually very beneficial.) Continuing on to a PhD in CS? Not so much :)

* Getting a Master's degree at a good CS university is an awesome path towards very cool jobs. The way I've seen that work is that those departments have CS professors who often look to commercialize their ideas (at least that's what I've seen with database research), and they try to recruit their more promising Master's / PhD students, especially if they were already working on the academic version of the project.

* I work remotely doing mainly C++ development, but I've found remote, well-paying C++ jobs are somewhat rare. But if you can build up some interest and skills in web development, it shouldn't be difficult to find a fully remote job that pays way, way more than a supermarket job would.

* This one is slightly depressing, but I'd be remiss to not mention it. You need to consider the ticking clock. As you get older you'll find it takes more time and effort to develop expertise in new languages, frameworks, etc. And doubly so if you meet the right special someone and have a family. So if you're looking to better situate yourself for work that's more interesting and/or pays better, you should get moving on that plan ASAP.

* +1 on what everyone said about OSS involvement. ESPECIALLY if for whatever reason you're unable to leave your current job and location.

chris_wot2• 10 years ago

If you have C++ skills, contact me - I live in Sydney and I'd love someone else in Australia to talk to about LibreOffice code!

My email address is in my about page.

lardissone• 10 years ago

Out of subject, but which "developer community related" subreddits do you people read?

My experience being a developer with no developer community

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