Hello Friends 👋,
If you just found this blog, let me introduce myself. I'm Ayu, a self-taught front-end developer and tech blogger based in the Netherlands. I'm also an open source contributor and community enthusiast 😊.
Being self-taught is a lonely journey. Do you agree? It took me almost a year before I found my first community through Twitter. And it took me that long to find out that the tech field is friendly and supportive.
I have become more confident and grown so much as a developer, a tech blogger, and a person since I've been part of and active in some tech communities.
There are many supportive tech communities out there. But in this article, I will share 7 communities that I recommend based on my experience being one of their members, in no particular order.
Virtual Coffee is a welcoming and supportive tech community for developers at all stages of the journey founded by Bekah HW. Whether you're a seasoned developer, a beginner, a non-tech professional in the tech field, or even only have an interest in tech, all are welcome.
That is the reason why Virtual Coffee won the DevRel Awards 2022 as the "Most welcoming developer community".
I love everything about Virtual Coffee. And one of the things that I love about Virtual Coffee is that they use a person-first approach. All members know each other through the Tuesdays or Thursdays sync coffee chat and Slack. They are active, and all are very supportive.
Virtual Coffee has lots of community events. They do internal Lunch and Learn and provide members a safe place to give a talk to share their knowledge. They also conduct monthly challenges to do as a community, regular small study groups, and many more. Their volunteers run all the things that happen at Virtual Coffee.
Besides the website, you can also check out their Twitter and podcast to know more about them.
Virtual Coffee intentionally keeps its group small to focus on intimacy and closeness. That way, they can give full support to the existing members.
So after pausing for some time, Virtual Coffee started to open their membership. You can join the waitlist if you're interested in joining the community!
The Collab Lab is a volunteer-driven community to help early-career developers. This community is founded by Andrew Hedges and Stacie Taylor. The Collab Lab aims to provide early-career developers the real-world experience and skills by collaborating and working remotely on real-world projects. And all in a supportive and inclusive environment.
If you're an early-career developer, you should check out and apply to their eight weeks cohort program.
And if you're a seasoned developer and are willing to contribute your time to help early-career developers, you can apply to volunteer as a mentor at The Collab Lab at any time.
I admire The Collab Lab's dedication to helping early-career developers. I also love that everyone in the community continuously learns from and supports each other and thrives together.
You can check out their Twitter, Mastodon, and their YouTube channel if you want to know more about them!
If you're around tech Twitter, you must be familiar with the name Eddie Jaoude. Eddie is one of the GitHub stars and the founder of EddieHub, an inclusive open source community.
With the motto "Collaboration First, Code Second", EddieHub encourages developers at all levels to accelerate their careers and skills and grow networks through open source while having fun as a community.
I immediately felt the warmth of the community when I joined them. The members are very welcoming. I love seeing and experiencing how active they are in helping and encouraging each other on their Discord channel. Besides Discord, they actively support each other (and beyond!) on social platforms.
If you're into open source, you should check out their website and GitHub to learn more about them and join the community!
Women Who Code is a community that empowers women in technology. They have networks in cities worldwide and global ones such as WWCode, WWCode Front End, WWCode Mobile, and others.
They do many online events, internal events, conference, and their Slacks are active (I'm on WWCode and WWCode Front End myself). I like that their volunteers are very supportive and actively engage with the members.
Check out their website for more information about them and to join the networks!
DEV Community is a blogging platform, part of Forem. DEV Community provides a safe and supportive place for developers at all levels to share their knowledge and stay up-to-date through blog posts.
Even though I am an early-career developer, I feel safe and welcome in this community. The members, the team, and the moderators are actively engaging, from supporting to giving feedback.
Adding to that, they encourage the community to write and share their knowledge more through their weekly "Top 7 Featured Posts" and badges!
Another community part of the Forem and DEV Community family is CodeNewbie Community. CodeNewbie's content is geared toward newbies and early-career developers.
I've been following CodeNewbie and the founder, Saron Yitbarek, on Twitter for so long. I often interacted with their Twitter chat when they were still doing that. I have felt fully supported by the community since the early days of my learning journey. I love what they're doing as a community to help and encourage newbies.
Another thing I love about CodeNewbie is that as an early-career developer, I feel at home and conveniently share my newbie knowledge here. I met many early-career developers through their previous Twitter chat, the CodeNewbie Challenge program, and the CodeLand conference!
Hashnode is a community-based blogging platform. Their goal is to help developers and people in tech to connect and share knowledge easily.
That's how I also feel about Hashnode! It's very convenient to share writing content there. I love how engaging and supportive the team and the members are, whether on their platform or Discord. And I have made more writer and developer friends since I joined Hashnode!
Final words
Whether a self-taught developer or recently graduated from a bootcamp, you want to consider joining supportive tech communities. With communities, you can grow and get support. Even if you're a seasoned developer, tech communities can be where you can find friends with the same interests outside your work.
Are you part of tech communities and love being part of your communities? Come share and tell us more about them in the comment below 😀!
Thank you for reading!
Last, you can find me on Twitter and Mastodon. Let's connect! 😊
