DEV Community

What it is

DEV is a blogging platform and community for software developers, free to read and to publish on. It was founded by Ben Halpern, Jess Lee and Peter Frank, and it runs on Forem, the open source Ruby on Rails software they built to power it. DEV has partnered with Major League Hacking (MLH), the student hackathon organisation, to combine DEV's knowledge sharing community with MLH's hands on programmes.

You can write in Markdown, add tags (such as javascript, python, career or beginners), publish series, embed code and cross post from your own blog with a canonical link so search engines credit your original site.

Why publish here

Writing about what you learned is some of the cheapest career leverage available to an engineer:

• It forces you to understand the topic well enough to explain it.
• It creates a public record of your thinking that recruiters and hiring managers can read.
• Over time, people know your name before they meet you.

The hard part is starting somewhere unintimidating. DEV's comment culture is generally kinder than many technical forums, beginners are welcome, and a first post can get genuine readers through tags.

What to write about first

• A bug you fixed and what caused it.
• A short tutorial on something you learned this week.
• A write up of a university or side project: the problem, your approach, what went wrong.
• Notes from a book or course, in your own words.

Aim for one short, specific post every week or two rather than one perfect post a year.

Reading it well

Quality varies widely, as on any open platform. Some posts are excellent; many are shallow listicles or promotional. To get value as a reader:

• Follow specific authors and a handful of tags rather than the main feed.
• Treat tutorials as starting points and check them against official documentation.
• Use the reading list feature to save posts you want to return to.

Limitations

• Discoverability depends on tags and timing, so good posts can get little attention.
• Some content is low effort or AI generated; be selective.
• Publishing only on a platform you do not own carries risk. Consider cross posting from your own site or keeping copies of your writing.

Pair it with

• Your own blog or portfolio site as the canonical home for your writing, with DEV as a distribution channel.
• Hashnode or Medium if you want to compare audiences.

Best for: developers and students who want to start writing publicly, and readers looking for practical, community written articles.