"Dialectical Materialism is a system for producing change by observing and influencing the 'contradictions' of 'opposites' that produce 'struggles' that, when resolved, produce progress."

Hello Developers,

Welcome to the 481 new developers that joined Showwcase in the last week. Every week we'll reveal what's happening on Showwcase, the latest features, and interesting resources for the community on engineering, technology, and productivity. 

What's new on Showwcase

Hello Developers,

We've got almost 200 communities for developers on Showwcase and more developers are joining them everyday with more being proposed every week.

This week we launched a nice little update to Your Communities in the Navigation Bar. We've updated it so that your Communities are well organised and easily accessible.

You can toggle to close off each Category section if you'd like but will still receive Notifications on the Community when new content has been posted.

As usual, if you've got any feedback for us regarding the platform, we'd love to hear it! Just DM me or any member of the team.

What's happening on Showwcase

10 Opportunities for the next 10 years

On the path to building a Hyper-Verticalized network for developers 🔥

It seems that code and content will be the most important outputs over the next decade. So we are making a run at building a new way for devs to find all kinds of work opportunities, together.

The incumbents have scale, money, and power. We mostly have our brains, code, our community, and Hello Developers.

Background

I’ve been a developer now for 5 years after transitioning from an Economics and Finance background, working in investments, and equities. Coding since 2017. Been interested in Web3 (mostly BTC/ETH) since 2016.

Since I got tech pilled I’ve been bullish about how software and can make a better world for everyone.

Before Covid I was mostly an observer - reading, watching, and learning. Since June of 2020 though, I started Showwcase (you're on it now) and we are trying to build a Community-first Verticalized network for people that can code, everywhere.

Why?

There has to be a better way that coders can represent who we are instead of redirecting everyone to LinkedIn - it’s still the leading “professional” network.

But wait Rong, what about Github? My portfolio? My resume? My StackOverFlow? My Blog?

Exactly. You literally have to use a combination of 10 platforms to represent who you are. 

1. My best work is usually not on my open Github. 

2. My portfolio needs constant designing, updating, and SEO? 

3. Resumes are... hmmm. 

4. And StackOverFlow and Blogs are great! 

But that’s not a holistic view of who you are, what you’ve done, and who you’ve done it with.

Once you can represent who you are though, then we need to build the interaction layer so you can engage with the Community and gain access to new work opportunities.

That’s what a complete verticalized network for people who can code should look like.

and what about Twitter?

My relationship with Twitter at this point is love hate. It’s great to find people and connect but i’m not sure if it’s the best for developers. It’s just not optimised for us - it’s actually generalised. It’s a not a community of like-minded people with shared goals.

Also, people are more often than not judged by the number of followers they have. After 6 years in tech, the best developers I know have 0 followers, and they care for none.

Here are the 10

So these are 10 opportunities I see for developers over the next 10 years. And we’re trying to build for it in our Community-first Network for developers.

It’s a combo of: Web2 + Web3 + FutureOfWork + Fun

(1) Full-time - 40hrs/wk++

This is obviously the base case for all and should make up the bulk of most people’s incomes. However, the key shift here is that you can now work from anywhere - beach, boat, mountain side.

With the tools today, the earning potential for many of the most productive developers is no longer capped by geography. If products are competing on a global scale, companies will have to compete for talent on a global scale.

(2) Part-time - 20hrs/wk +/-

I am increasingly convinced that careers will be a lot more liquid in the coming years. If you’re incredibly efficient at what you do you could be working 4 quarter-time jobs or 2 part-time jobs simultaneously.

Eg. part-time dev + Community Manager + DAO contributor + Content creator

Without remote work this would be hard since you had to make it to a separate offices for each, maybe. But when the next job is one Slack or Discord Server away, a multi-teams framework becomes exciting and possible.

(3) Contract/Freelance - Timebased/hr OR by Contribution

The de-facto platforms for these have been Upwork or Fiver but I strongly believe we can build a better more optimised model specifically for devs. Developers are the most internet native category, and with Web3, payments are built into the infrastructure of the web so there is a lot of potential for new models. Micropayments, contribution-based, NFTs, Smart contracts etc.

(4) Developer Teams

This is something I am very bullish about. 

Getting a “job” has always been a Single Player Game. But developers have been working as part of teams for the longest time. I call this augmented teams. Your team augments another team to build a product/service/project together - and your team gets paid as a Team.

At Showwcase, each upcoming feature assigns at least 3 developers to it. So why not hire a proven team of 3 to join us instead of having to find 3 devs from 3 separate places. As a developer, if you’re working well in an existing group, why not find opportunities together?

Of course, there is always the 10X engineer. Wherein ten non-superstars could not replace the economic output of one superstar. But IF you are one of them, hats off to you. 

Feel free to reach out and collaborate!

Here is what you should look like in action.

(5) Tasking + Bounties

Get X done for $Y USD, W $BTC, or Z $ETH Eg. I need to build a dashboard into my marketplace product; Write an e2e tutorial on Ethereum for Beginners; Security test my Serverless app

This is done well at places like Gitcoin for Web3 Public Goods. But it’s also been done at AWS and shared quite a bit by Balaji Srinivasan or Sari Azout’s on how we can do more of it.

I think its cool and will definitely be part of and will be bigger in the futureofwork for devs.

(6) Writing Dev Articles

Many developer experts on particular topics already do this frequently. The ability to teach and share dev knowledge in a particular area will always be needed and we will only need more of it as software continues break into every industry and new tools come out everyday. I don’t expect this to be slowing down any time soon.

If you can write and teach well. This is a great earning opportunity.

(7) Sponsorships + Tipping

Do great work, create great content, contribute to projects and get sponsored! There are great Web2 tools out there that already help facilitate these like Buymeacoffee or Github Sponsors.

Open Source is a great place for this.

Again, with Web3, payments become seamless and with NFTs we will literally be able to compensate/tip/sponsor individuals for the code they contribute at the granular level via smart contracts.

(8) Create content and build 100 true fans

The Creator economy is very well covered across the web today. One of the leading people behind this is LiJin which has good write ups on it. It’s inevitable and no different for devs.

We need curators, creators, and teachers to help the rest of the community and pull us forward.

The only issue with this is power law dynamics of the economy: Mediocre creators make far less money while the best a handful of superstars at the top that make more money than all other creators in their field combined. That’s just what technology enabled with reach.

(9) Build side projects → side hustles → startups

If anyone was good at solving problems, it’s developers. I know so many stories where developers started a side project, turned it into a small side hustle, and then into an incredibly successful startup and business. IndieHackers is filled with success stories and i’ve met plenty of people do so well.

It takes a lot of work but don’t underestimate yourself. Find a problem for a niche set of people and build for that.

(10) Web3 + Blockchains

I sprinkled some Web3 ideas in (1)-(9) above but this emerging space will be a huge part of how devs make, earn, and contribute in the future (now). As we all know “you may not be interested in crypto, but crypto is interested in you.

Contributing to the world of Web3 may mean that you don’t have a contract, agreement, or formal relationship with the project eg. DAO. You just own the tokens are incentivised to work (contribute code) towards the goal it was founded to serve.

You could be a customer, contributor, partner, owner, or employee. As long as you own the token you own the project, participate in its upside, participate in governance decisions, and earn cash flows from the project.

This is fascinating and scary at once because contributors can move in and out of projects whenever they want and be compensated accordingly, taking liquid work to a whole new level.

To conclude

These are the 10 opportunities I see for devs and am working hard with the team on building for it. This may not be comprehensive and I am sure there are a lot that I’ve missed out.

The point of sharing it here is to open up the discussion to everyone. We have a lot of ideas and friends that are here to help along the way.

Most of the work we are doing is directly on Showwcase. If you’re excited and want to help in some way please get in touch. DMs are open.

The plan is hard and the mission is basically impossible but that’s why it’s incredibly fun and we’re going for it. 

Join the community and help the journey!

Best from my week of reading

This is all i've read this week but it's one heck of a read and incredibly important if you're looking to understand what's happening across the world especially with geopolitical dynamics. 

Showwcase is a network built for coders to connect, build community, and find new work opportunities