Starting a tech blog has changed in the last few years. 10 years back starting a blog without your website, you had 2 options Blogger or Wordpress. Both gave you a free sub-domain. Things did not change much for quite some time, but in 2012 medium came with a storm. It gained a lot of traction with its simplistic interface in 2014-2015. With the publication feature, Medium makes it very easy for a group of writers to collaborate. These days I would suggest most people start their blog on it.
Writing is tough, learning is essential #
Writing is never easy for most people. If you don't try it you never know if it is something you like or not.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” ― Thomas Mann
Writing is another form of expressing yourself. As people working in the tech domain, we need this skill of expressing ourselves well. Similarly, reading and learning about new things is also very important in our field. Learning is essential to survive in tech and move forward. Open source software there are a lot of consumers compared to producers. Likewise, there are a lot of readers for tech content but relatively much fewer writers.
Tech Medium publications accepting writers (as of 2018-2019) #
Below are the tech publications on Medium I would suggest all software engineers to follow to sharpen their skills:
FreeCodeCamp - 511K followers #
FreeCodeCamp is the place to go for learning how to code for free. It has a very popular and frequently updated publication on Medium. The content published on FreeCodeCamp blog is excellent. There are 17 editors and more than a 1K+ writers on this publication. You will need to read this elaborate blog post to know how to submit your story there. Writing for them is not easy, they also do light editing of your stories. Even if your story gets accepted it could have a wait time of 1-2 weeks to be published (my first story for them is still in the pipeline). All in all you must try to get your stories published there because of the sheer number of subscribers. It is #2 on toppub.xyz.
HackerNoon - 403K followers #
HackerNoon is also another extremely popular publication. It is on Medium right now but it may not be there for long. They are going public with crowd sourcing. From the content point of view, there is a sizable amount of content for software engineers. It also has lots of stories on cryptocurrencies. With 7 editors and 7K+ writers (includes me), this is a huge publication too. To write for them you need to send your draft to [email protected]. The wait time for each story is 1 week or more (I have already published 5 stories). It also has a writer's group on Facebook. You can include yourself as a "Contributing Writer" on LinkedIn too.
CodeBurst.io - 62K followers #
CodeBurst is a popular medium publication with contents focused on web development. With a motto of "Bursts of code to power through your day". I see most stories geared towards Javascript. They have a page encouraging "Write For Us". They mention having over 2 million page views per month. With 2 Editors and more than 900 writers, this is not a small Medium publication. I am not sure of the editorial process and wait times as I have not tried to publish any of my stories here. It could be a good starting point for new writers.
ITNEXT.io - 9.6K followers #
ITNEXT seems to cover a wider array of topics from DevOps to Javascript. It calls itself "a platform for IT developers & software engineers to share knowledge, connect, collaborate, learn and experience next-gen technologies". It has a short and to the point "Write for ITNEXT" page with enough details on how to submit a story to them. With 7 editors and 840+ writers, it is undoubtedly a growing publication I reckon. I can't comment on the waiting time for a story to be published on this one too.
Bits and Pieces - 8.5K followers #
Bits and Pieces look like a pretty active tech medium publication. It has content covering topics like NodeJs, PHP and mobile development. With a motto of "Coding In The Age Of Code Components". It somewhat lives up to it. It has detailed "Write a post" page which includes lots of examples. With 5 editors and more than 65 writers, it is an expanding publication. I think the barrier to entry should not be that high. The waiting time for a story to be published should be less as well.
Update 2020 #
In 2020, both FreeCodeCamp and Hackernoon have moved to their own platforms. FreeCodeCamp is using the Ghost CMS and Hackernoon has built it's own CMS. Other publications are still on Medium.
Update 2021 #
To make the list more comprehensive I am adding some more great medium publicaitons, as follows:
Better Programming - 165K followers #
Better programming as a tech medium publication with a whopping 165K followers is only second to Towards Data Science with 510K followers. It is also very popular and wants writers to write about tutorials, actionanble advice and deep dives. The Better branding with a B in differnt colors has Better Marketing and Better Humans as other highly successful publications. All 3 brands accept stories from freelance writers. Better programming has great writeups on JavasScript, CSS and even databases.
Level Up Coding - 54K followers #
Level Up Coding is under the Gitconnected brand. It has a write for us page recommedning to write about step-by-step guides, programming tips, and following best practices to mentions some from the list. They have articiles published from Go Lang to Javascirpt and from Python to Git. So many things under the sofware enginerring universe is covered at Level Up Coding. With more than 54K followers it is with less doubts a popular tech medium publication.
DailyJs - 108K followers #
DailyJs is a very popular medium tech publicaiton with 108K followers. If you write anything related to JavaScript you should aim at submitting the medium post to DailyJs. They claim to have "received over 1M total views" and their twitter account has 432.4K followers. Send that email to Chris and be part of a thriving JavaScript medium publication.
JavaScript In Plain English - 40K followers #
Another JavsScript focused tech medium publication happy to take your medium stories is JavaScript In Plain English. Their write for us mentions you can submit anything related to JavaScript. You can send Sunil an email or DM him on twitter to get he process started. In addition to JavaScript medium stories I have found a few posts on CV and databases too on JavaScirpt in Plain English. With more than 40K followers it is a great publiction to get a wider audience for your medium posts.
Popular Niche Ones #
UX Collective with 228K follower is also calling for stories. Last but not least, UX Planet having 173K followers also wants you to write for them.
Honorable Mention #
Though dev.to is not a Medium publication but it surely deserves a place here.
Currently the 11,357th website in the world, it has no editorial process.
This makes it one of the most accessible website to write for that without doubts has a big audience. I got 2250+ followers on Dev.to in less than 2 months having just 20 posts.
Conclusion #
If you don't accentuate your skills and knowledge people are not going to know about them automatically. Start a blog and write posts for such popular platforms. It will give you that needed exposure. Start blogging!