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Ask HN: How does one get into the hacker community?

5 points by hackerwannabe ↗ HN
I started my first job as a software engineering working for a company (in Seattle - just moved here). But I want to actively learn and grow outside of work as well. I also want to network with like minded, hacker folks from outside my company. How do I go about finding other hackers?

Thanks

4 comments

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aaronbrethorst
Welcome to Seattle! You picked a kind of crappy weekend[1] to join in here, but I promise the summers are worth it!

Are you living in Seattle proper, or on the East Side? I can't speak for activities in Bellevue, Kirkland or Redmond, but over here, there's quite a bit that you may find to be of interest.

* Beer and Code - regular meetups around the city where you BYOB, meet interesting folks, and hack on projects. I've occasionally attended the one on Capitol Hill, and had a lovely time. http://seattle.beerandcode.org/

* Metrix Create:Space is a sort of electronics workshop/hang space for hackerish types here on Capitol Hill. They're open til midnight every night. http://metrixcreatespace.com/

* Seattle.rb has a regular Tuesday night meetup at Vivace, just a couple blocks south of Metrix. http://www.seattlerb.org/

* Xcoders has a regular Tuesday night meetup at Wayward Coffee, and less frequent tech talks that move around. http://seattlexcoders.org/

* There's a Rails meetup at Cafe Racer every Monday. http://www.meetup.com/The-Seattle-Ruby-on-Rails-Developers-M...

* The Seattle Android Developers meetup happens at F5 Networks on a semi-regular basis. http://www.meetup.com/Seattle-Android-Developers/

[1] http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/03/major-coastal-storm.ht...

hackerwannabe
Thanks a lot for the welcome. Those are great links. I live in Capitol Hill and I am within bussing / walking distance to some of those locations. I think this will be a great start.

I don't mind working with someone on their side projects to start gaining experience. Do you think the BYOB meetups would be a good place to find someone who could use more parallel keystrokes?

aaronbrethorst
Excellent, the hill is a great area. I'm sure you'd be able to find someone looking for another developer at one of the BYOB meetups.
TheDahv
Hi there. I help organize the Beer && Code events, and ours is definitely a great way to a) meet like-minded programmers b) make time to learn a new language or hack on a side project.

We do see some collaboration happening at Beer && Code, and I wish there were more. The best way to get in on a side project is to go to the events and meet people. If they seem cool and you find your styles are similar, find out what they're hacking on and fork it if it is on GitHub.

To get you started, feel free to hack on any of my projects at https://github.com/TheDahv. I like collaboration and I feel like I learn more from it.

Finally, in case there is any confusion, Beer && Code meets in both Cap Hill and in SLU on an alternating, every other week basis. Tonight's is in SLU and it would be a great opportunity to experience the entrepreneurial vibe going on there.

Hope that helps!