Sorry this post is late Bryan. I made a promise, and here's the follow through.

From Bryan on LinkedIn:

Any advice for a newcomer to the IT world in Houston these days?

There are many different ways to do it, but you asked me and here's how I'd do it if I was starting from scratch:

1. Attend user group meetings that appeal to you. Match tech stacks or look out for meetings with topics of interest to you.
2. Attend user group meetings IN-PERSON. Remember, you are trying to build a network. It's alot easier to do that in person than to do that over Teams/Zoom/Slack/WebEx or whatever your favorite video conferencing software is. Most of these user groups will feed you pizza just for showing up! Networking + Learning + Pizza == Good.
3. Connect with people on LinkedIn. Most speakers will actually give you contact information at the end of their talk.
4. Talk to the speakers. They are there to talk, so unless they are busy getting setup talk to them. They are going to be public speaking and if they are nervous, some conversation might help them loosen up.
5. Talk to the organizers. They are some of the most plugged in people in the area. They are also looking to promote the user group, so they'll definitely be up for talking.
6. Talk to other attendees. Some may be social and others might be shy. Don't be too pushy, but be welcoming.
7. Show up alittle earlier to the event and talk to people.
8. Hang out alittle bit after the event and talk to people.

You're pretty heavy on the user groups.

Well yeah, you want to meet people and get plugged in, right?

I can't find any topics that interest me, what do I do now?

User groups are always looking for speakers. Come up with a talk of your own to give at your favorite user group(s). If you can't give a 1-2 hour talk right off the bat, ask the user group organizer if/when they are doing lightning talks. These are shorter and more to the point talks over a more specific topic.

Ok, that's great, but who should I meet in the Houston area?

Here they are in no particular order except for the first one, but I'm biased:

1. Me
2. Devlin Liles (Improving)
3. Claudio Lassala (Improving)
4. Daniel Scheufler (Improving)
5. Aaron Stannard (Petabridge)
6. Jon Badgett
7. Ahmed Hammad (Improving)
8. Michael Slater (Improving)
9. Adam Hems (3Cloud)

If you are reading this and want to be included on this list, let me know and I'll add you to the cool kids list.

What user groups/meet ups does the Code Gorilla go to regularly?

1. Houston .NET User Group (HDNUG)
2. North Houston .NET User Group (NHDNUG)
3. Houston Azure User Group (HAUG)

I'm not seeing any user groups that interest me, now what?

Go to meetup.com, do some googling/binging, or talk to your favorite ChatGPT like LLM and see what they say.

If you want to get plugged in to the tech community, you've got to get out there and meet people.

Now that you've begun developing your network, you may want to get a job. You can spend your day just blindly applying to companies and see where that gets you, or you can leverage your network to help find jobs. Be sure to ask questions like the following:

Do you know anyone who might be looking for someone with my skill set?

This question doesn't put the person on the spot because you are not asking them for a job directly. If you are building a good network, this can help you gain some traction out there on the job hunt. Remember, it's alot easier to get hired when someone is pulling you from the employer side.

That's what I've got. Did I miss anything? Let me know!

This past Friday night, I made the trek down to the Improving Houston office for a Houston Java Users Group meeting. If you say I'm not a Java developer, I'll say you are correct. The topic tonight peeked my interest since this is something that I've been thinking about lately. It was Beyond Senior Developer: The Next Steps For Your Technical Career by Bruno Souza. If you are a senior developer trying to figure out where to go next in your career, this talk is worth your time (even if you aren't a Java developer).

Thanks to Jim Bethancourt for the invite to attend this event.