About us
Why does the gap between what university teaches and what the first job needs stay so wide — and why is everybody crossing it alone?
DevCon14 started in 2021 because a handful of students and two working engineers were tired of watching capable people stall for want of one introduction, one honest CV review, or one person willing to say what the job is actually like.
The road here
Including the parts that did not work. A community that only publishes its wins is not much use to anyone trying to build one.
2021
Nine students and two working engineers, trading interview questions and complaining about the gap between what university taught and what the first job wanted.
2022
Someone asked whether anyone would read their CV honestly. Twelve people showed up to the first clinic, and it has run nearly every month since — it is still the reason many members arrive.
2023
A local non-profit needed a donations tracker. Five members, eight weeks, one very rough handover. We learned more from that project than the next ten.
2024
Joint events with university societies and a first partnership with a technology company. The community stopped only talking to itself.
2025
A second city, and the first product we built for ourselves because nothing on the market fit — the member directory, still maintained by a team of four.
2026
Same monthly clinic, same one-page project briefs, considerably more chairs.
The five
They are not aspirations. They are the filter: if a proposal fits none of the five, we do not run it, however good it sounds.
01
The gap between a final-year student and a working engineer is usually one introduction wide. We close it on purpose — through meetups, member circles, and a directory where a junior can find someone three steps ahead who remembers what it was like.
2,400+Members connected
In practice
02
CV reviews that are honest, mock interviews that are hard, and referrals that are real. No paid courses and no funnels. Members who have hired and been hired sit down with those still working out the first step.
340+Placed or promoted
In practice
03
A community that only talks to itself stops growing. We partner with universities, student societies, mosques and technology companies — sharing what we have, learning what we lack, and making sure our members are in rooms they would not otherwise enter.
28Partner organisations
In practice
04
Members team up on real briefs from real organisations — non-profits, mosques, small businesses and university departments. You get the experience employers keep asking for, and the client gets something they genuinely needed.
60+Projects delivered
In practice
05
Beyond client work we build and maintain our own products — tools the community needed and nobody had made. Members join a product team, own a slice, and ship something that outlives the semester.
5Products in the open
In practice