This month Add Jam sponsored the GlasgowJS meetup. It's a JavaScript community event with talks, networking, pizza and drinks. The meetup is organised entirely on a volunteer basis by Jamie McHale founder of Telaco and is a growing community with a diverse mix of attendees from students to CTO's.
The theme this month was a personal website code jam. Developers brought their portfolio sites, shared ideas and helped each other build something. We weren't the original sponsor. The venue and monetary sponsor unfortunately pulled out last minute which was then leaving Jamie scrambling. When we heard, we were happy to step in.
Why we sponsor meetups
Meetups like GlasgowJS are the real heart of the tech community. They're where developers learn from each other, where students meet their future colleagues and ideas get kicked around over a slice of pizza.
For junior developers especially, meetups are invaluable. They offer a way to learn what isn't taught in bootcamps or university courses and in the age of Claude and Codex exposing junior developers to learning opportunities like GlasgowJS is even more important. The practical stuff is best picked up from people who've been doing this for years. Meetups are also how new talent beds into the industry and builds their networks. These connections lead to jobs and collaborations.
We've hired from meetups. We've found collaborators at meetups. We've met future clients at meetup. We've learned things at meetups that changed how we work.
They really are invaluable and we genuinely were more than happy to help.
The Ecosystem Problem
Scotland has no shortage of funds and initiatives to support the "tech industry." There's a lot of money sloshing around to "build the ecosystem". Unfortunately the industrialisation of the ecosystem has resulted in the support is not always reaching the people that genuinely need it.
The "ecosystem" has become an industry in itself. There's plenty of noise and activity. There's probably not a day goes by without some kind of event with catering budgets, fancy venues and fully paid up staff that dwarfs the annual spend of actual tech meetups that are volunteer led and run. The "ecosystem" will spin out reports nobody reads, panels where the same faces discuss innovation without ever shipping a line of code and there's a circuit of busy work founders get caught up in. Rather than build their products and focusing on scaling they get caught up in the process of playing startup rather than actually doing it.
Meanwhile, events like GlasgowJS rely on small companies like ours and a handful of individuals to keep the lights on.
It's a bit mind-boggling. Our small team can find the budget to sponsor a meetup that genuinely helps developers learn and connect. Yet the well-funded "leaders" of the Scottish tech ecosystem are nowhere to be seen when a community organiser needs a few hundred quid or some space to host the event.
I'm not suggesting every initiative is pointless. Some do good really great work. I just can't help but feel the ratio of "tech ecosystem" activity to actual technical focused activity feels off. If you're spending money to grow Scottish tech, maybe start with the people writing the software?
Get involved with the Scottish Technology Club
Jamie deserves a mention here. He runs GlasgowJS on top of his day job, purely because he believes in community. He has previously helped me a tonne with the setup and scaling of RookieOven. Jamie also runs Scottish Technology Club which consists of a weekly newsletter, events aggregation, jobs board and an active Discord community.
If you want to stay plugged into what's happening in Scottish tech, the Scottish Technology Club Discord is the place to be. It's where people share job opportunities, ask for advice and organise social events (if JavaScript talks aren't your thing). I try my best to be active and from what I see there's no egos or time wasters. Just genuine people enthusiastic about tech in Scotland.
The events are also live streamed by Live to Air run by Allan Lloyd. If you couldn't make it in person, you can catch the talks online.
Get Involved
If you're in Glasgow or Scotland more broadly:
- Join a meetup. GlasgowJS runs monthly. There are also meetups for Ruby, Python, DevOps and more.
- Sponsor a meetup. It doesn't cost much and you'd be surprised how far a bit of pizza money goes. If you have the budget or space to host help an organiser out
- Join the Scottish Technology Club Discord. It's the best way to stay connected with the community.
We'll keep supporting events like this. It's not about brand awareness or lead generation it's because these events matter and someone needs to make sure they keep happening when the Ecosystem Industry fails us.
Add Jam is a software development agency based in Glasgow. We build mobile apps and web platforms for startups across the UK. If you're working on something interesting, get in touch.
