The Los Angeles tech scene is rapidly growing with a combination of great coding meetups teaching people how to code and startups that are looking to hire new junior devs. While there are plenty of startups in the LA area, some notable ones that you may have heard of include Tinder, Dollar Shave Club, Wag, and Soylent, and they are all hiring! If you are looking to get a new career in programming, I highly recommended attending some of these LA meetups where you can learn to code for free and meet other like-minded programmers.
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Thinkful LA is focused on helping beginners and intermediates learn in-demand skills, like HTML/CSS, JavaScript, React, and Design. They also host tech talks that focus on helping you get a job, including topics like networking, portfolio creation, and how to start your career in tech. They even host happy hours!
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Build with code is a coding meetup group that hosts events every Thursday in Santa Monica, which include lectures as well as pair programming. They mainly cover learning to code in JavaScript, and they also emphasize the importance of building projects and not just watching videos.
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Learn Teach Code LA is a more general coding meetup that is very friendly and strives to provide a supportive environment to learn coding. They cover a wide variety of topics including everything from machine learning to web development to Bitcoin! You can even check out their slack channel before you attend.
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SoCal React is a popular ReactJS meetup that hosts workshops and talks from some of the lead engineers building React. Past speakers include Michael Jackson, creator of React-Router, as well as Tom Occhino, React Engineering Manager at Facebook. Topics vary from beginner to advanced so learners of all levels are welcome.
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SoCal Python is a popular meetup for new and veteran pythonistas. Typically they include talks on various python topics. In the past, they’ve also partnered with other meetups such as LA Django (Django is a python framework). They also have been known to provide beverages for meetup attendees! 🍻
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Women Who Code LA is a chapter of Women Who Code, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. This chapter hosts study groups, hackathons, workshops and more! Women Who Code is dedicated to helping women learn to code and as an added bonus, they are very beginner friendly.
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LA Ruby is a meetup that focuses on Ruby on Rails. They typically host study groups as well as bigger monthly meetups that include presentations on how to learn Ruby. They are sponsored by an LA-based company that has an interest in helping others learn how to code.
Love a LA coding meetup that isn’t listed here? Let me know so I can add them! I currently help run the Thinkful LA weekly workshops both in Santa Monica as well as DTLA. RSVP to our next event. Also feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions at noel@thinkful.com and happy coding.