Tech Communities and Resources
During the pandemic and working from home for the last two years, I have been actively looking for online tech communities to participate in. Perhaps it was my natural instinct to fill the void of random daily chats on non-work-related but work-like conversations that used to take place along the hallways in the office.
I stumbled upon many tech groups and channels over time and there is only a selected few that I will revisit or participate in. In my opinion, there are roughly 4 factors for me to engage in a tech community.
1. Personal Preferences and Interests: I favour groups that focus on career growth and engineering leadership. I also have some interest in front end development and cloud.
2. Phase of your life/career: The demographic of a tech group is typically as such; tech newcomers, regular dev folks or more experienced veterans. The majority tends to dictate the flow of the daily conversation. You may feel “out of place” if the content of the daily conversation doesn’t interest you.
3. Proximity: I prefer groups with a local community. It just feels a little closer in a sea of random online avatars.
4. Pace: The vibes of the tech community depends on the pace of the conversation. There are groups with thousands of messages per hour and there are groups that are almost dead. I prefer groups with a manageable pace of interaction. About hundreds of messages per group/channel per day are ideal for me.
Community Builders may find some tips from the Knowledge Hydrant helpful in engaging your community.
Communities
There is a list of tech communities that I enjoy being part of.
Coding Career
[Paid]
How to Join: Get the Coding Career Community Package
The Coding Career community is created by Swyx, the author of the book. The Coding Career Handbook aims to help junior developers transit to senior developers.
What I Like: Swyx engages the community daily and there are quite a few folks from Singapore in the group which makes the experience more personable.
Rands Leadership Slack
[Invite Only]
How to Join: Email Rands
Rands Leadership Slack is a community that focuses on helping longtime, new, and aspiring leaders to learn about leadership through conversation and sharing of ideas.
What I Like: I feel that it is a valuable resource for those who are interested in engineering leadership. Even if you are not interested in leadership roles, there are over 600 other channels that range from general career advice to random tech chat to participate in.
Lion City Makers
[Free]
How to Join: Telegram Invite Link, or DM fajarsiddiqFS
Lion City Makers is an online community of indie hackers from Singapore.
What I Like: I am not an indie hacker (yet), but I love to follow what other fellow developers in Singapore are creating. There are plenty of creative ideas!
React Podcast - Lunch Dev
[Free]
How to Join: Discord Invite Link
React Podcast and lunch.dev are created by Chantastic. Chantastic has been helping developers learn React since 2013.
What I Like: I am an occasional listener of the React Podcast. The general channel is one of the friendliest internet places I have been and I enjoy reading the chats and learning some random front end tips along the way.
Cloud Study Network
[Free]
How to Join: Meetup Group, Telegram Invite Link
Cloud Study Network (CSN) is a global independent non-profit community of cloud enthusiasts with headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany. It is a valuable resource if you want to learn anything about the cloud.
What I Like: Cloud is a heavily certified domain. Cloud Study Network is my go-to place to find free training resources, certifications, etc. and follow trending topics on the cloud.
Other Resources
Soft Skills Engineering
Link: Soft Skills Engineering Podcast
My go-to choice for software engineering related podcast. It covers everything a SWE experiences at work other than the code itself.
r/ExperiencedDevs
Link: r/ExperiencedDevs
A subreddit for fellow experienced developers.
Blind
Link: Anonymous Professional Network - Blind
Blind is an anonymous community used mainly by FAANG techies to discuss career topics like salary, offers etc. It is not that useful in the context of Singapore at the moment, but it is one of the places I will drop by if I am bored of the above options.