Our humble story

Way back in 2008, when the Python language was just starting to get traction with forward-thinking developers interested in scale, performance, and web, there were very few opportunities for even the extroverted Pythonistas to meet and geek out with each other. If one wanted to network with and learn from like minds, the best bet was to travel PyCon, the once-a-year national Python conference. Once there, outside of the scheduled talks, developers cheered on as they bump into their IRC counter parts, hallway conversations with strangers turned into mentoring sessions or new projects to hack on - I’ve never seen software engineers so happy, inspired, and fulfilled. I was in awe witnessing the magic and power of in-person interactions, especially in the digitally dominated world. At the same time, I felt sad that these people wouldn’t have another opportunity to meet until next year.

So in November 2008, when my hiring manager wanted to find developers interested in learning outside of work and sharing what they know with the team, I put together meetups where even the most introverted developers would have a good time learning, sharing, and socializing with others. Almost immediately, we were met with companies in San Francisco offering food and office space, and our meetups went from 35 attendees to 150+ attendees in record time. When I was too busy to produce these meetups, Simeon Franklin and others came to the rescue.

Today, with the help of a handful of dedicated volunteers, SFPython is now:

• the largest community-run meetup in SF Bay Area, with 13,000+ members

• producing 20+ developer-focused events a year, enabling developers a consistent touch point for relationships to develop

• collaborating with other Bay Area meetups to produce PyBay, the annual Bay Area Python conference

• making our talk videos available on YouTube so our 9,000+ subscribers can benefit from the Bay Area’s tech wisdom

• the only meetup of this scale offering unbiased content—our organizers are not paid by their companies to produce these events, so we’re able to select talks that are most interesting and relevant to the community

• the only meetup that’s working to be financially sustainable via company sponsorships and individual donations

Over the years, we’ve built a robust Python community and ecosystem in the SF Bay Area. We’ve heard stories of people getting their problems solved thanks to the talks or the people they met at our events. We’ve witnessed people grow in their career, from receiving their first internship to landing their first speaking gig at conferences. We’ve heard companies migrating to a different platform/technologies they learned about at our meetup, and we’ve even heard from start-ups who got the traction leading to funding after speaking or exhibiting at our conference.

I’m grateful that so many talented people have joined together for a great cause and that our collective volunteer efforts have yielded so many results.

We hope to start influencing companies to offer more support for the community, to contribute back to the open source developers and ecosystem, to offer SFPython sponsorship or administrative support to run these events, and to offer grants or scholarships for those interested in going to PyBay and getting a tech education.

We look forward to you joining this awesome community and hope to see you at our up coming events!

Grace Law, SF Python Founder