Geelong Tech Meetup

A place for engineers to connect and share learnings

TL;DR: Join us on slack to get started.

Now that things are becoming normal again, I want to see if we can create a space for professionals in the software engineering field (and relatives) to meet and collaborate IRL in Geelong. It is getting close to Christmas, so I suspect this is a good time to start organising, but a bad time to meet.

The plan would be to kick off in the new year and spend this time gauging interest and getting set up.

I moved to Geelong from Melbourne mid-pandemic, and for now, I don’t see myself getting back into the city very often. I know a bunch of folks like me in the industry, living in Geelong, so this is an attempt to create a local meetup.

We’ve got some talent down here - I know some who can speak incredibly well about software engineering, APIs, Front ends, Security, DevSecOps - you name it. I’d love a decent cadence of catchups and tech talks that I can attend locally without the need to get to the city.

Who should be interested

I would love to see a wide spread of experience and expertise. From fresh graduates or students to veteran software engineers - I’ll even allow middle management types (since I most likely fall into this category these days).

There are few expectations, except the usual social rules you would expect to see.

What could it look like?

We’re not quite big enough to host separate JS, JVM and billion Front end meetups. However, a single meetup will likely mean content that can span front-end to back-end to engineering management.

Lean Coffee - Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. This is the format that is much easier to organise and get going.

Meetup - The usual, a speaker or group of speakers present for 60ish minutes. Q&A and socialising afterwards. Usually paired with fine Pizza and Beer.

Next steps

Join the slack community here. Ironically the best way I can think of the gauge interest is to get you guys to connect digitally, and slack is a no brainer. We can use Slack to organise the next bit.

Book the first event - it could Lean Coffee, social catchup or a tech presentation (if we can find space) - depending on preferences.

Find a space - once I know we have some numbers, I’ll contact local companies to see if they would sponsor their space for a bunch of Geelong technology enthusiasts for us to use. Of course, it would be great to eventually get to the obligatory pizza and beer situation we know and love.

A bit about me

Two years ago, mid-pandemic, my family and I decided to move from Melbourne to a slower-paced Geelong. We had talked about the move before COVID hit and had even had the green light from my boss for two days WFH.

Your WFH mileage may vary depending on a million factors - I have enjoyed it because I get to spend so much time with two little girls at home. However, I miss the face-to-face connection with other professionals in my field, which has been compounding for the last two years. I feel the need to be more social with others in my field and think this is a great way to get a local community started.

Current work

I’m currently working with a fantastic company that is 100% remote. We do have access to co-working spaces in Melbourne and Sydney, but unfortunately, nobody from Engineering lives down this way (Sydney is the closest person in Engineering for me). I am sure that this is my main driver in creating this space - an outlet that doesn’t require me to commute to Melbs :)