I ran my FIRST event, and I can't stop thinking about it.

The street was buzzing with groups having after-work drinks. As I walked up the stairs to the entrance of the bar, I could already feel the nerves. Walking around the dimly lit bar, I found my name on a sign, and sat down to wait.

I ended up being there 30 minutes early, which is a bad idea by the way because you just sit there on your own looking like a bit too eager on a table booked for 20 people, wondering if anyone is going to show up.

I’ll be honest, I was only expecting four people (the ones I coerced) to actually show up. I’d had 18 register but I know how these things go, people register with good intentions but then can’t make it on the day or whatever.

So I didn’t have very high expectations. It turned 6pm, and I’m looking out the window, to see if I could spot any of the people that had registered. Gradually getting more nervous as time goes on. A few minutes later, an old colleague taps me on the shoulder. It was such a relief that the first person to arrive was someone I knew.

Then a second engineer walks in, and slowly more started to trickle in.

That feeling of relief. I’d been waiting for it a lot longer than 30 minutes.

The truth is, I’ve always been looking for a community here in Sydney. When you move to a new country, starting from zero, you don’t have old school friends or little pockets of people that you’ve gathered over the years. You don’t have people to vouch for you when you’re looking for a job or to tap you on the shoulder to come work for them. And if you’re not connected to someone in the industry already, chances are, you will get overlooked for others who are known.

I spent years in an engineering role at an MSP where the only other engineers I connected with were in my direct team, and maybe a few from my clients. I tried to find others, looking for slack groups, discord servers, meetups. Didn’t find anything.

Then I left that role, and joined a small startup company. I met more people in the Sydney IT industry in the first 6 months at this company than I did in the previous 6 years, and there was one simple reason for this, I’d stepped into a role that required me to build relationships with sales teams, presales engineers and customers, in order to be successful at the job.

This is when it all clicked. Engineers rarely get put in positions where they are required by their roles to form relationships with those outside of their teams. They rarely get the opportunity to go to industry events, because they’re all aimed at the people who sell things, and unless paid for by their organisations, they rarely get the opportunity (unless they personally invest in it) to go to industry conferences like Cisco Live.

The thing is, I truly believe that engineers want to get out there, that they want the opportunities that come with interacting with the industry — the mentorship, the job offers, the random skills you pick up along the way. There’s just not a space for them to do that.

That’s the idea behind The Route Table. I’m creating the thing I needed 10 years ago. To give engineers a space to meet industry peers, outside of the sales cycles and the product pitches. To foster meaningful connections that could lead to who knows what opportunities. To learn together, grow together and simply have fun in an industry that is full of burnout and negativity.

So I booked a table. And I waited to see if I was the only one who’d needed this.

I ended up with ELEVEN engineers in the room, some in IT support, others in Sales Engineering and Leadership, a real mix.

At some point during the evening I found myself to the side of the room, mid-conversation with one of the attendees. We were talking about community building, he’d grown communities in other areas and we’d got onto the subject of not becoming the hub, about building something that doesn’t depend on you to function.

Mid-sentence, I looked over at the room.

Everyone was mingling. Genuinely. Not the polite, awkward kind of networking. Just people, talking, laughing, sharing stories. People whose lives may never have crossed, had I not had the wild idea to stop looking for a community and to try and build one. Some of them even went to grab dinner together after.

Eleven engineers may not sound like a lot, but I left feeling excited, motivated, and with a clear vision of what this could become.

This is the start of something bigger. More events, unique experiences, and an accessible space for engineers in Australia.

If you’re reading this and it sounds like something you’ve been looking for, send me a DM. I want to meet you.

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If you’re interested in coming along to the next event.You can check out the event calendar here