This text is meant to stir debate and is totally open to comments — including disagreements. But after hearing “frontend is going to die” so many times, nothing really shakes us anymore...
In this (very gradual) return to in-person activities — at least the ones that make sense to be or have the option to be in-person — I’ve also been getting back into attending meetups and events, and reviving my routine of creating content.
This specific article is something I started conceptualizing back in 2021, but I never moved past the research phase (especially since it’s largely based on personal opinion and experience). And honestly, that delay turned out to be a good thing, because my conclusions have evolved since I first came up with the idea.
What I Mean by “Community”
Very similar to the idea of a shared convention, what I mean by “community” here is the group of people in tech who gather at events, meetups, groups, and other interactive spaces to exchange knowledge, network, and so on.
This is one of the activities that’s been regaining momentum in the return to in-person spaces — and it makes total sense to me. Personally, sometimes I get “screen fatigue” from work, and an in-person event is what motivates me to keep investing time in software topics, even on weekends.
Dev.to itself is a kind of community, especially when you look at posts in the form of questions or discussions, which are mainly meant to engage and interact.
I’ve always been connected to community. I got into frontend thanks to a local developer group where I used to live, and today I participate in communities that discuss the technologies I work (or have worked) with, mostly around São Paulo.
Even though I deliberately distanced myself from the community during the pandemic — mainly due to screen fatigue and all-remote events, as I mentioned — I still consider it an important part of a dev’s career. It’s not impossible to become a good developer without community — after all, there are many paths to success in life — but I would definitely point to it as a smoother road.
Community and Companies
Tech communities and companies have been intertwined for a long time. This became especially obvious in the 2010s during the startup boom. Tech events were even satirized in episodes of HBO’s Silicon Valley (which, if you haven’t seen, I highly recommend — it’s worth enduring the secondhand embarrassment from some absolutely absurd yet painfully real situations, both past and present).
Companies could offer event spaces inside their offices, sponsor meetups and post job openings there, or encourage their developers to speak at events, among other things.
In return, events could attract the kinds of professionals companies were looking for, and also inspire devs to explore new technologies, methodologies, and technical solutions for the problems they were tackling at work.
Just like not all devs participate in community, not all companies do either. And there are also companies that host their own tech events, but don’t necessarily participate in, support, or encourage their employees to attend external ones. Some companies simply ignore the dev community altogether.
Motivated Absence
Every rule has its exceptions, and here there are probably more than just one. But this is a connection I’ve noticed: some companies don’t support their employees’ participation in tech events because of their high turnover rates.
For these companies, if an employee gets involved in a community filled with companies hunting for talent — and lots of people talking openly about the advantages of their jobs — that employee can easily jump to a better opportunity or one that aligns more with their personal goals.
Not all companies that stay away from community do so for this reason, but I believe the so-called “stepping stone companies” (where people go mostly to gain experience before moving on) avoid community involvement precisely to keep employees around longer.
Conclusion
This connection became clear to me as I reflected on some past work experiences, and also through conversations with colleagues — asking them how familiar they were with software communities, and how often they were exposed to these topics, whether through institutional communication or their own coworkers (your immediate circle says a lot about the place you’re in).
Another takeaway I had was this: community and events can also help you understand the fair value of your work. If you go to an event and meet people in your field who are giving talks, making the most of their income, and willing to discuss salary ranges and benefits from where they work, you can reflect on whether you’re being compensated fairly — even if your company doesn’t have an open internal salary policy.
Today, I’m happy working at a company where, every time I go to an event, I meet people who already know or have heard about the company’s pioneering initiatives, diversity, inclusion, and support for communities and events. More and more, attending events shows me that companies that compensate fairly, support, and encourage their employees to grow have much more to gain — not lose — when their people participate in tech discussion groups.
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