• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Codemotion Magazine

Codemotion Magazine

We code the future. Together

  • Discover
    • Live
    • Tech Communities
    • Hackathons
    • Coding Challenges
    • For Kids
  • Watch
    • Talks
    • Playlists
    • Edu Paths
  • Magazine
    • Backend
    • Frontend
    • AI/ML
    • DevOps
    • Dev Life
    • Soft Skills
    • Infographics
  • Talent
    • Discover Talent
    • Jobs
  • Partners
  • For Companies
Home » Dev Life » Community Management » You can help create and nurture good developer communities
Community Management

You can help create and nurture good developer communities

Kristina Schneider talks to us about how she built one of Berlin’s most successful developer communities and build up a network that hosts events, conferences and classes.

June 8, 2020 by Cate Lawrence

Table Of Contents
  1. Community Management for Developers
  2. Community Management for Developers

Community Management for Developers

Download our latest eBook to learn how to build a thriving coding community with no prior experience. We had Codemotion’s own community managers and some of our members list down the essential skills, practices and tools according to their first-hand experience.

Download

Developer communities and the people who help make them happy are a critical part of the growth and progress of computer software and the careers of developers. We recently spoke to Kristina Schneider. She’s co-founder and chief of product at Cobot, who create a software management platform for coworking and flexible workspaces globally. Outside of this role she plays a massive part in building and nurturing communities – she’s a co-organiser at CCS Conf. Eu, a not for profit conference dedicated to the designers & developers who love CSS. Kristina is also one of the community managers at Upfront, a meetup group in Berlin focused on UX/UI design and front end development. When she’s not doing all of this, she also helps with CSS classes which are an initiative of CSSconf EU and Open Tech School and help to lower the barrier of entry to learning CSS.

Kristina’s community focus really established itself when she moved to Berlin about ten years ago as a young front end developer and was seeking community. She ended up creating one of Berlin‘s earliest dev meetup groups: 

“I was looking to find people doing the same as me, and I couldn’t find anyone. And also there weren’t many meetups around. So I just started my own, and it started with five or seven people.”

From this humble beginning, Kristina and her team have built a community where a weeknight meetup can attract 100 people – hugely impressive in the crowded Berlin tech scene. She details: “It’s about the need to find other people to exchange idea and discuss what we are passionate about, just to meet each other and not sit in front of our computers.” 

What makes a good developer community manager? 

Kristina is hugely proud of the achievements gained through running and supporting community events. She  believes that recognising the pleasure in helping others is rewarding in itself: 

“I think you need to be very empathetic and just understand that what you’re doing for the community is very valuable for some people. It’s especially important to recognise the people who might be different than you are and get some joy and reward out of creating inclusive communities.”

Good community-building tools 

While Kristina agrees that digital tools such as Slack and website are vital as a means to spread information, the most beneficial developer community building tools are “in-person meetings because being face to face really helps to exchange information and learn from other group members. She also notes that this is equally true when it comes to the organisers themselves, as meeting in person providers a greater opportunity to resolve conflict quickly and accuracy.

The Hurdles of Community Management

Germany is a country known for its bureaucratic hurdles, and this is a challenge keenly felt by community managers who are running not for profit events, conferences, and creating communities staffed by volunteers. Kristina notes:

“I really wish that especially in Germany there were a lot less bureaucratic hurdles for installing or founding a not-for-profit organisation. It’s not that easy, and the legal bureaucracy is a huge barrier for many communities just to become a legal entity that can receive donations.”

How you and your company can help support developer communities 

Like many community organisers, Kristina also dislikes the challenge of the ‘consumer mentality’ of some members, and she explains, 

“Many attendees are very supportive and like to get involved, while others don’t really appreciate what organisers and volunteers are doing out of their own time, unpaid. So, I would love to see more support coming from attendees, but also companies as that’s what communities need. We value financial and volunteer support. 

As with any established community groups, there’s a lot of less visible expenses that may not be apparent to event attendees: “Most communities have to cover rent for the spaces where they run their meetups, cover costs for hosting websites, paying meetup.com. We also strive to pay volunteers for their time where possible and to provide catering. So supporting our expenses is a real help and is often possible for many attendees and the tech companies associated.”

Kristina stresses that community support is always appreciated, especially for those for whom a financial contribution is not possible:

“It’s always appreciated just to ask: How can I help? Do you need a few more hands to set up the venue? Do you need people to help with social media? And for sure there’s always something to do.”

Kristina details that the most rewarding part is seeing the efforts of the community managers and organisers come together to create something exceptional: 

“The work in advance can be frustrating. But the moment when you open the doors for an event and the attendees come in, and they see what you built for them, you see the lineup work really great on stage, and then you see in the faces that people are learning something in the breaks and see how people are connecting… That’s really the most rewarding aspect, to see that the work pays off, and people are connecting and forming a community.”

Codemotion is here to help 

At Codemotion, we’re huge champions of community managers and here to help where we can. As Kristina says :

“I actually lost track of how many years we’ve been partnering with Codemotion. I think at least three or four years, and during that time at least one of my communities or more have been community partners and Codemotion has been really supportive. Some of our previous speakers have given presentations or staffed booths in the break out space. It all creates great interaction with people who haven’t met us before and works out well as people come and ask, ‘Hey, what are you doing here? How can we get involved? So yeah, that works out. It works very well for us.”

Community Management for Developers

Download our latest eBook to learn how to build a thriving coding community with no prior experience. We had Codemotion’s own community managers and some of our members list down the essential skills, practices and tools according to their first-hand experience.

Download
facebooktwitterlinkedinreddit
Share on:facebooktwitterlinkedinreddit

Tagged as:Community CSS

IoT Innovation and Bluetooth® mesh networks
Previous Post
Troubleshooting & Debugging Microservices
Next Post

Related articles

  • COVID-19 Emergency: A Community Manager’s Diary – Chapter 5
  • Agile Talks Community: Interview With Massimo Sarti
  • Codemotion’s Recommended Tools to Start a Community
  • 18 Tips for Running A Good Tech Meetup
  • Ladies That UX Creates a Vital Space for Women in Tech
  • Codemotion Community Platform: Full User Guide
  • Most Commonly Used Tools By Codemotion’s Communities
  • Reactive Amsterdam Community: interview with Fabio Tiriticco
  • Codemotion Milan Shares the Value of Community
  • Communities’ corner! Let’s meet: WroclawJUG

Primary Sidebar

Learn new skills for 2023 with our Edu Paths!

Codemotion Edu Paths for 2023

Codemotion Talent · Remote Jobs

Game Server Developer

Whatwapp
Full remote · TypeScript · Kubernetes · SQL

Back-end Developer

Insoore
Full remote · C# · .NET · .NET-Core · Kubernetes · Agile/Scrum

Full Stack Developer

OverIT
Full remote · AngularJS · Hibernate · Oracle-Database · PostgreSQL · ReactJS

Data Engineer

ENGINEERING
Full remote · Amazon-Web-Services · Google-Cloud-Platform · Hadoop · Scala · SQL · Apache-Spark

Latest Articles

Will Low-Code Take Over the World in 2023?

Frontend

Pattern recognition, machine learning, AI algorithm

Pattern Recognition 101: How to Configure Your AI Algorithm With Regular Rules, Events, and Conditions

AI/ML

automotive software

Automotive Software Development: Can Agile and ASPICE Coexist?

DevOps

programming languages, 2023

Which Programming Languages Will Rule 2023?

Infographics

Footer

  • Magazine
  • Events
  • Community
  • Learning
  • Kids
  • How to use our platform
  • Contact us
  • Become a Contributor
  • About Codemotion Magazine
  • How to run a meetup
  • Tools for virtual conferences

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • RSS

DOWNLOAD APP

© Copyright Codemotion srl Via Marsala, 29/H, 00185 Roma P.IVA 12392791005 | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • RSS

DOWNLOAD APP

CONFERENCE CHECK-IN