We still need developer communities

We still need developer communities - Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow Business Stack Internal: the knowledge intelligence layer that powers enterprise AI.Stack Data Licensing: decades of verified, technical knowledge to boost AI performance and trust.Stack Ads: engage developers where it matters — in their daily workflow.Major League Hacking is a 500k+ global member community that hosts hackathons and open-source fellowships for the next generation of developers. They recently acquired DEV, an online community for 3M+ developers to learn and share together.Connect with Mike on LinkedIn or email him at swift@mlh.io.Congrats to Stellar Answer badge winner Antony Hatchkins for getting over a hundred saves on their answer to Git replacing LF with CRLF.TRANSCRIPT[Intro Music]Ryan Donovan: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Stack Overflow podcast, a place to talk all things software and technology. I'm your host, Ryan Donovan, and today we're talking with a fellow traveler in the community space, talking about the entry points for programmers in communities and what the future holds. My guest today is Mike Swift, who is the Co-founder and CEO of Major League Hacking. I guess now DEV-2, right?Mike Swift: That's right. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Ryan.Ryan Donovan: Yeah. Welcome to the show. So, before we get to chatting, we like to get to know our guests. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into software and technology?Mike Swift: Actually, I have a very non-traditional journey into tech. My parents were the kinds of people who believed in degrees with careers attached to 'em. So, doctor, lawyer, accountant, those were the choices. And when I went off to university, I had to work my way through school. And so, I went on the job board for the university, Rutgers, where I went, and I sorted the jobs by how much they paid, and applied for all the ones that paid the most, regardless of what the job was and whether I was qualified, which in hindsight, was a terrible idea. But I basically fell backwards into this coding job, and I didn't know how to program at the time. I love technology, and I was really excited about building things, and I went in and I told them that. I was like, 'hey, you're probably better off hiring literally anybody with experience,' but for whatever reason, this company took a chance on me. I was literally the only programmer on staff writing accounting software and PHP of all Things. I literally showed up on day one with a Sam's Teach Yourself PHP in 21 Days book, and I figured I would be either gainfully employed, or at least I'd know how to program after three weeks, and I could take another shot at it. And the funny thing is, I really think I learned to code on Stack Overflow. The other day, I was opening up my profile, and I was looking back on that, but so much of what I was dealing with, I was literally scouring questions and answers, or asking my own. And I think that book did a lot for me to get me going, but Stack Overflow was really the thing that got me over the line. Anyway, I did that job for a couple years, never told anybody about it. Friend finds out I program eventually, and I'm literally getting ready to apply for law school, and he invites me to my first hackathon, and I'm like, 'never heard of a hackathon before. That's something elite programmers do, not a beginner who wants to be a lawyer.' I literally showed up at this hackathon at NYUA, with 100 other students giving up their weekend to come back to campus, and come up with these crazy ideas for inventions, and websites, and robots, and all this, and show it off to this room full of complete strangers. And it was transformational. I think I learned more in that weekend than my entire degree up to that point. It was probably the first place I ever felt like I belonged in earnest, if I'm really being candid about it. The next day I went home. I looked myself in the mirror, I'm like, 'what am I thinking, wanting to be a lawyer? I've gotta be a programmer.' Switched computer science, and was shocked by how different those classes were from the hackathon. Solo sport technology's 10 years outta date. Totally theoretical and unapplied, not real at all. And anyway, I took my education in my own hands. I did things like hackathons, and open source, and capstones, and eventually I worked my way up to a real internship, but all learning by doing. And I eventually went on to—we'll get there, I'm sure—but start MLH as a way to help make sure anybody in the world didn't have to go through that alone anymore.Ryan Donovan: That makes sense that the hacking appealed to you, figuring it out in real time. Now you are CEO of Major League Hacking, just acquired DEV-2 as of this recording. As somebody who works for another developer community, what's your take on the state of programming today of writing code and building software?Mike Swift: I feel like I have a bit of an anti theory is the truth, and I'm very vocal about it, and I will be the first person to say it – to frame this a little bit, we have to understand how exactly the breadth and depth of MLH, and then we can talk about dev as a part of that. But MLH without Dev– so, before the acquisition, roughly one in three computer science graduates each year here in the United States, where headquarters goes through one of our programs on an annual basis. That's just one of a hundred countries around the world where we have chapters of developers getting together to learn, build, and share. And that's a huge swath of industry. I would estimate, up to this day, roughly 10% of all of the full-time software engineers employed in the United States are alumni of the MLH Network. So, not a trivial number of people, and truly the Crucible where they really were fired, and started their journeys in a lot of ways. So, I feel like we do have a finger on the pulse here in a way that, like a lot of people, really don't. And my anti-theory is this: I think that today is the single greatest day in history to become a software creator. And I'm thinking–Ryan Donovan: Wild take. Love it.Mike Swift: Yeah. I'm sure we both do. I know. Yeah. I'm using the word software creator, not software engineer or developer specifically, because I think the world is changing, and I've observed this in real time. I went to a bachelor party for one of my buddies in college back in September, and I already described to you [how] I was not a technologist in school. None of my friends were; they're lawyers and consultants. Of the roughly 15 guys I was with, more than half of them have already built internal tools for themselves at work or for their colleagues using AI. Now, this is hyper-disposable, hyper-personalized software. This is not the type of thing that you're deploying to production to build a business around or whatever. This is, ' I have a problem,' and in the same way that I have tools like reading and writing at my disposal, I now have code, and I have the ability to make things and solve real problems. Now, I think we're going through an industry moment right now where things are changing a lot, and there is gonna be a lot of pain along the way/ but I think the true outcome is, even in its most aggressive estimate, there's what, 40 million software engineers in the entire world today? There are literally a billion knowledge workers who are about to come online and have the ability to write code and solve problems. They're gonna be hackers, right? They're gonna be the people who MLH, and Dev, and frankly, Stack Overflow serve in a lot of ways, where they're gonna need help onboarding and on ramping into this industry, and they're gonna need a place to learn: what are the tools? How do I actually use them? How do I build the confidence and track record to do it? And then, especially in this world where, God, between social media and AI, we're just inundated with digital assets and digital communication, person-to-person, real human connection is gonna be the driver of so much stuff in life. And so, communities of practice guilds in a lot of ways are really the future. And yeah, have a lot more we can add there. But yeah, I think generally the TL DR headline is if I had the choice to go back in history and start my career again in 2012 when I graduated, or today, there is literally no question I would pick today. I think there's so much more opportunity. There's so much more to do. It requires a different type of thinking. We are literally re-skilling our entire global economy in real time, and that is one of the most exciting opportunities of my lifetime, probably of human history.Ryan Donovan: I love the take of super optimism. As I see some of the younger folks, some of my contemporaries who've gotten laid off, who are abandoning IT because there's a whole lot of shedding and reconsidering going on right now – for somebody who's looking for their foot in the door, what's the new process from your perspective?Mike Swift: There is a lot of short-term pain right now, and I don't think it's gonna go away anytime soon is the unfortunate thing. I think we're riding out the tail end of one of the great market corrections of the technology industry. If you look at what happened between 2022 and today, really, there frankly was a lot of overhiring that happened during COVID. There's was a lot of exuberance in tech that, frankly, we didn't have the growth to back up, and the market corrected, and a lot of really talented people ended up on the job market. At the same time, we have this radical catalyst for change—AI that comes onto the scene—and that also brings uncertainty into the market. You add in all the other macroeconomic factors around the world, and you're like, 'oh my gosh.' This is just a scary time to be a human, and to be candid about it, I know lots of people outside of tech that are struggling in the same way, so we're not alone in that journey. Now, the advice, though, about getting started right now, what would I say? The firs