Our Support Engineer, Noel Castillon, is the founder of Columbus Code & Coffee, a bi-monthly tech meetup for software engineers of all skill levels. Read on to see how he developed this grassroots group of coders to offer insight and community in Columbus.
Career Changes and Community Curation
“Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive tech meetup I started in the summer of 2022. Its inception is a layered story, marked by the pandemic, its effect on the workforce, and the need for human connection. At its core, I started the meetup to achieve two things. First, I wanted to learn what I needed to know as a newbie to the field of software development. And secondly, I wanted to build a base of community-driven engineers who can cheer each other on in this fast-paced industry.
I’m what you might call a non-traditional technologist. Prior to the work I do now, I was a middle school English teacher. I adored working with adolescents, brimming with energy and unbound by conventions. When circumstances arose that prompted me to step away from the classroom, I decided to focus my attention on a longtime curiosity of mine: coding. I grew up watching my brother spin up websites for family businesses, and late into high school I got my feet wet with Java trying to make mods for the video game ‘Minecraft.’ Going into this career pivot, I knew I was starting at something of a deficit. I lacked a computer science degree, and I certainly didn’t have any institutional backing to help me land internships and early-career opportunities. What I did have, however, was a treasure trove of free, online resources to help kickstart my career.”
The Coffee Chat
“While it was a blessing to have so many tutorials and beginner-friendly projects at my fingertips, I quickly became overwhelmed by getting started in this field. I was exposed to numerous programming languages, many with guttural, alien, or animal-sounding names. There were various tracks I could focus on like backend engineering, DevOps, and mobile development. There was so much talk of “learn ‘X’ before ‘Y’” and “don’t bother with ‘A’ when everyone does ‘B’ now.” I quickly realized that I needed some direction, so I did what was intuitive to me and my humanities-informed training: I talked to folks on a personal basis to gather stories about how their tech careers had progressed.
In the early 2020s, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter had a bustling community of early-career developers hungry to break into the industry, along with mentors who were happy to guide new cohorts of programmers. During this time, I had a routine of perusing Twitter to schedule “coffee chats” (casual 15-30-minute conversations) with folks whose career trajectory I admired, and whose choices I wanted to emulate.
In this litany of coffee chats, I connected with Steve Chen, who was relatively early in his work with New York Code & Coffee. He was conceiving a framework for inclusive tech meetups in other metropolitan areas like Chicago and St. Louis. He spoke highly of his experience organizing grassroots, developer-driven communities, and the vibrant events that were steadily growing, month by month. Taking inspiration from this, I paired up with a friend, who was also transitioning from a non-tech background, and we started to meet at a coffee shop, listing the event online as Columbus Code & Coffee.”
Materializing a Meetup
“My friend and I had relatively simple goals when we started our meetings. We were still establishing a foundation for our technical knowledge, so we put our heads together to work through coding challenges and teach each other concepts we’d been wrapping our heads around. The biweekly meetups were a space for mutual learning, accountability, and celebrating victories–especially the little ones.
The first month of Code & Coffee was attended solely by its two founding members, but word quickly spread of what we were trying to do. Our numbers steadily grew, attracting the whole spectrum of engineers–from students and bootcampers like ourselves, to seasoned code wizards–all of whom reveled in an environment full of people as enthused to talk tech as we were.
Years later, the ethos of Columbus Code & Coffee has stayed the same. At its core, it’s a third place for software practitioners and the coding-curious to connect and uplift one another.”
Pick Your Poison: The Power of the Everything Meetup
“Code & Coffee deviates from other tech meetups in that it takes something of a “choose-your-own-adventure” approach. Where most meetups might purely focus on a lecture or networking, we invite attendees to partake in any combination of socializing, attending professional development opportunities, or working heads-down on some code. At the top of the event, I hold our kick-off activity dubbed the “intro circle”, a standup where we go around the room and introduce ourselves and the expertise we carry into the room.
From there, folks splinter off and take their pick of how they want to spend the afternoon. Many spark conversation after learning they work with similar stacks. Others set up in corners and conference rooms to make headway on personal projects. Some come purely to attend presentations on new technologies they’re curious about. Beyond our regular meetups, Code & Coffee has also recently taken a dive into hackathons. This is a response to the community’s requests to hold more pressurized environments to build, collaborate, and upskill.”
Getting Started
“I’m often asked if you need a certain level of experience or know-how to participate in a Code & Coffee session. At the risk of sounding overly optimistic, I truly believe anyone can benefit from coming out. There are senior engineers who commiserate with other battle-tested developers, reminiscing over software of days past. Sometimes, entrepreneurs come to get guidance on the technical logistics of innovative ideas they have. I’ve seen concerned parents come to learn how AI works and leave with the relief that robots will not take their children’s jobs. Most reflective of myself are the early career developers who come to sponge all the advice and knowledge in the room, rallying for an opportunity in this field. I honor the meetup as a contact zone for many different minds and perspectives.
Fundamentally, I am a fan of people. I adore witnessing the volley of ideas when you get like-minded people in a room. I love seeing folks mentor one another, wallow together, and nudge each other along. And I take great comfort knowing that every two weeks there is a gaggle of developers nested at the bends of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers that would gladly spend an afternoon chatting.
If you have any interest in talking to software developers, I highly recommend coming to one of our meetups. If you’re not in the Columbus area, I encourage you to visit any one of our 35+ sister chapters. The bulk of our members connect with us through Meetup.com, but there’s hardly a formal sign-up process. Show up the day of the event (laptop optional, but encouraged) and get ready to meet lots of folks. That’s the real extent of joining the community.”
Links
Website: https://cbuscodeandcoffee.com/
Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/columbus-code-and-coffee/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/columbus-code-and-coffee/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/cbuscodeandcoffee
“X”: https://x.com/CBUSCodeNCoffee
National Code & Coffee Website: https://codeandcoffee.org/
