Are you tired of all those Zoom calls where everyone is talking over each other, and it’s impossible to get a word in? Online events are great — don’t get me wrong — we all love sitting at home in our pyjamas pretending to work but there’s some human element missing from that experience. 

Now that meetups are back up and running, it’s time to get involved. We’ve had two years to sit at home and contemplate our career paths. Now’s the time to jump back into the social scene, meet some great founders and developers, and maybe even share some of your own experiences. If you’re located in or around Vienna, Austria, we’ve put together this list of great meetups you should attend. Some are for the ladies, some for the gamers, and a lot are for the JavaScript devs.

1. Vienna Deep Learning 

When: Monthly

The Vienna Deep Learning group discusses the latest trends in deep learning, neural networks, and machine learning. They regularly hold talks with speakers from academia, startups, and industry who focus on bridging the gap between current research and what’s happening in the industry. 

The meetup caters to an intermediate to advanced level audience and provides resources for more learning and development. You’ll get a chance to meet and discuss deep learning at the end of each meetup over drinks and snacks. This is one of the largest tech meetups in Vienna, with a lot of members who are interested in data and machine learning. 

2. Vienna.js

When: Last Wednesday of the month 

If you’re a JavaScript developer — I don’t care if that’s on the backend — you have to be at Vienna.js. And there’s really no excuse not to be there since it’s only held once a month (last Wednesday of the month). The group is welcoming of everyone, whether you’ve only just started coding or you’re well down the rabbit hole. 

This is your chance to learn and connect with your fellow JavaScript developers. You can stop the infighting for one night and just hangout without arguing whether React is better than Vue. You’re also welcome to give a talk or show the group new stuff. 

3. PyLadies Vienna

When: Unknown

This one is strictly for the ladies, sorry boys! PyLadies is Python mentorship for women, they are a big community with meetups around the world. This meetup is specifically for Python devs in Vienna, so if you’re looking to participate a little more in the community this is a great place to start. 

PyLadies Vienna holds workshops, coding sessions, and other events open to women who’d like to upskill and finetune their programming skills. The group is open to beginners as well so don’t feel like you can’t participate if you’ve just started. 

4. Vienna Data Engineering Meetup

When: Monthly

For all the data engineers out there, this one’s for you. Vienna Data Engineering Meetup is pretty new — May 2023 will be their second meetup ever. Don’t let that dissuade you though, these meetups are well organised, so be prepared to hear from some great local speakers and spend a nice hour chit chatting with other data professionals. 

In the three-hour runtime, you’ll hear from two speakers with a short Q and A at the end of each talk. These talks go for about 40 minutes and after that attendees spend the last hour networking over some drinks. It seems super interesting, check it out if you’re in the data field. 

5. React Vienna

When: Monthly

So we mentioned the JavaScript meetup, while that was focused on frontend development in general, React Vienna is focused on learning the React framework. So if working with React or want to learn React, this is the meetup for you. The agenda isn’t super clear but you can expect to hear from at least two speakers who are well versed in the framework and will provide you with some valuable insights. 

This is a monthly meetup held in the middle of the workweek, so make sure you mark it on your calendar and show up on time! I’d imagine there’s also some time to network and meet other React developers. 

6. Vue.js Vienna 

When: Monthly

Are you interested in the progressive JavaScript framework? They really need to change that tagline to something cooler. I love Vue.js but that’s a mouthful. Vuejs Vienna is a bit smaller than the React and JavaScript meetups mentioned above but still worth your time if you practise Vue. 

This meetup is held once a month during the working week close to the city centre, so if you’ve made the commute it’ll be easy to stop in. You’ll hear some interesting talks and then once it wraps up you’ll be able to socialise and talk about all things Vue. 

7. Unity 3D, Developing Games and More

When: Monthly

Unity 3D, Developing Games and More (the meetup) is a game dev meetup held monthly in Vienna. The events are organised to connect Unity developers and those interested. It’s a mixture of online and in-person gatherings. With the online gathering it’s mostly focused on the talks and Q and A whereas in person you’ll get to network and socialise as you like. 

They generally have two speakers per meetup sharing their wisdom. There’s a lot of hype around Unity at the moment because of the ChatGPT plugins and what not so it’s good to see that the co-organisers are focused on bringing you the latest tips. Check it out! 

Two more from Austria

It’s worth mentioning a couple other meetups in Austria since it’s not the biggest country and you might find yourself in Linz or Graz in the near future. 

1. The first meetup is linz.ai which is a data science group in (you guessed it) Linz. They hold events every couple of months and talk about the new generation of data analysis, mining, and machine learning. So make sure you look them up if you’re ever in Linz. 

2. The second is Cloud Native Computing Graz, which is a community chapter of CNCF. The meetup discusses everything Kubernetes and DevOps. These meetups are also organised every couple of months so keep an eye out. 

Best tech meetups in Vienna 

That wraps up our list of the top tech meetups in Vienna. You’ve got everything from front end development to data engineering to game design – so plenty of options out there for developers. I’m sure there are plenty of other great dev meetups in Vienna that we’re not yet aware of. If you know of a meetup that you think should be on this list, let me know ✌️.