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

------
sunshiney
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
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!

~~~
mooreds
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/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-
Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557)

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

------
pedalpete
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.

------
bad_user
> _“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.

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

------
alexandercrohde
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
> 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.?

~~~
dempseye
Does that matter if they do their work properly?

~~~
blablablame
Yes, of course, because if you aren't talking about code 99% of your awake
time, doing 54 projects in your free time, contributing to open-source
libraries and writing blog posts and have no life or interested outside
looking at a computer monitor you can't be a 1000000x engineer /s

~~~
manmal
Who needs to be a x10 engineer anyway - perhaps ppl need it to have a sense of
self worth? I would only strive to get to x10 if I genuinely wanted to solve
problems with those skills that require them. Like, working on my own projects
and not having much time for them.

~~~
dempseye
I certainly respect people who work hard to achieve expert status in any
(worthwhile) domain.

Some people are just driven that way.

------
khedoros
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).

------
welanes
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'?

------
moron4hire
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_wot
They don't seem to be people I'd be too concerned with interacting with!

~~~
moron4hire
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.

------
nailer
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.

------
marmaduke
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.

~~~
mbrock
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.

~~~
marmaduke
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.

~~~
mbrock
They shaped, nurtured, and inspired me, and continue to do so.

------
qw
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
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.

~~~
qw
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

~~~
clappski
I don't mind my 1h25m commute, even if I don't get a seat on a train you can
still read or write. It's not such a bad lifestyle as people think. Leave the
house at 0730, home by 1840.

~~~
regecks
I live in metro Melbourne and had a 90 minute commute to get to work nearby
the CBD. Throwing away 3 hours, day in day out was really, really stupid, and
nearly drove me to quit within 1-2 years.

You can fit a lot of life in 3 hours. It's not worth sacrificing when you have
even the glimmer of a choice. Remote now and way less depressed.

------
voltagex_
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/](http://www.meetup.com/Geelong-
Lean-Coffee/) looks promising.

~~~
shruubi
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
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.

------
nsainsbury
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! :-)

------
atemerev
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).

------
dustingetz
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
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...

------
afro88
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.

------
everyone
"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?

------
sorich87
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).

------
DoofusOfDeath
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.

------
andreapaiola
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.

~~~
iuguy
+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.

~~~
andreapaiola
Tourism means also money...

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

but not much work...

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

------
chris_wot
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.

