Episode description

Hear from Singapore's prominent community builder, Michael Cheng, on how to contribute to communities, and learn more about his latest passion for mentoring junior developers.

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“Rather than being passive about it, why don’t I take a proactive approach to try and find people who are like-minded, who share the same ideals and goals and let them come together and just share."

Michael Cheng has been a prominent community builder in Singapore, having created communities such as Engineers.SG, PHP User Group, iOS Dev Scouts, and recently JuniorDev.SG. There are many people who have benefited tremendously from his communities, and importantly, those communities have also helped to accelerate the growth of the tech and startup scenes in Singapore in the last few years.

In this episode, hear from Michael on why he created those communities and what made him started in the beginning, including the challenges he was trying to solve. Michael also shared the impact that his initiatives have brought both to the communities and to him professionally. We also discussed JuniorDev.SG and how some of its programmes have been helping junior developers towards the goal of dropping their “junior” title.

Listen out for:

• How Michael started his community contributions and why he started them? - [00:03:40]
• Michael’s strategy to ensure that his meetups have good traction - [00:06:35]
• Why Michael created Engineers.SG and the impact that it brings to the community - [00:08:00]
• How community contributions have impacted Michael’s professional career - [00:20:14]
• Why Michael created JuniorDev.SG and how it differs from the other groups he created before - [00:22:49]
• JuniorDev.SG activities, e.g. mentoring programme, developer’s gym - [00:27:31]
• Michael’s 3 Tech Lead Wisdoms - [00:35:33]

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Follow Michael:

• Twitter (@coderkungfu)
• Website (https://coderkungfu.com/)

Mentions & Links:

• Engineers.SG (https://engineers.sg/)
• JuniorDev.SG (https://juniordev.sg/)
• The Singapore PHP User Group Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/sgphpug/)
• Singapore iOS Dev Scout Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/Singapore-iOS-Dev-Scout-Meetup/)
• The Geek Path (https://thegeekpath.com/)
• Geek Brunch SG (https://geekbrunch.sg/)
• Confreaks (https://confreaks.tv/)

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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/2.