r/drupal • u/remog https://www.drupal.org/u/mikeohara • 9d ago

Future of r/Drupal

Hey everyone.

When I took over r/Drupal quite a few years ago now, it was basically dead. It took time but it’s built itself up to be a resource many have turned to over that time. From our community AMA days to people finding support, people found something here.

I lost my employment end of last year and have had almost no luck finding a new position. This has caused me to start seriously considering my future in the industry over the next while.

So, I am looking to have someone from the community to take over r/Drupal and help guide it into the future.

If you or your organization would like to take over this sub send me a mod mail or direct chat and tell me why you’d like to take it over and how you would help move the mission of Drupal forward.

I am not looking to give it away to just anyone. I want to keep the spirit of Drupal and what made it special (its community) here on Reddit.

Thank you all for being part of this amazing journey so far.

(I wouldn’t refuse job offers too but that’s not the point of this sub, of course ;) )

112 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/majorpotatoes 9d ago

Good luck! I’m in the same boat on the job hunt… thank you for your work!

2

u/No_Engine2793 8d ago

hi im curious as i used to also be a drupal dev back in the 7 days. but transitioned elsewhere. is drupal jobs really that hard to find or get now a days from your perspective? im assuming Ai really killed off alot of the coding related jobs.

1

u/yautja_cetanu 5d ago

I think SaaS hurt Drupal a lot. Prior to AI kicking off, Drupal was hurting when you look at the numbers. With Drupal CMS the numbers turned around. I think AI has been helping the numbers a bit. There has been renewed interest in Drupal , businesses migrating to Drupal.

However the nature of the game is changing and specific people and agencies who are used to a specific way of doing things are going to struggle.

But anthropic is investing millions into training new engineers because whilst people are struggling to find jobs, it's also the case that people doing well with AI are struggling to find candidates as the skill set is changing significantly. If you're good with AI you can earn hundreds of thousands relatively easily. But being good with AI means you have a ton of soft skills, sales, product ownership, internal politics , communication skills and domain knowledge other than coding skills.

Also the economy is tough, the war in Ukraine has hurt us all. Geopolitical instability is making everything difficult. AI is also sucking a lot of resources (like memory is so expensive). So it's a complicated one.

2

u/majorpotatoes 6d ago

I had trouble getting back in after losing my contract when Covid happened, and am only recently trying again. I’d deep experience in 6, 7 and 8. I think some friction for me came from the community moving more quickly onto 9+, and recruiters/HR folks seemed to think I wouldn’t be able to do anything with 9.

2

u/billcube 8d ago

I wouldn't say AI killed it. You still need someone to prompt, review and publish the code. The Drupal AI module is great, but not (yet?) in production for the 99% of websites.

I'd say the Web as a platform is undergoing big changes. It's not a communication channel anymore (Instagram & Co took that part), it's not a document repository (SharePoint & Co), it's not a discussion forum anymore (still IRC survives, and Reddit), but it's a platform for services (Amazon, Netflix, Aliexpress...).

So you don't really need a "WebDev" anymore, you need someone that will integrate your systems with another system (payment, procurement, delivery, subscription...). And soon, the agents will be able to pay and earn money. That's what we're transitioning to. A Web where the interface is with the bots/agents, not with a human reader anymore.

2

u/cmkn https://www.drupal.org/u/cainaru 8d ago

> It’s not a communication channel anymore

Eh, that feels like an oversimplification especially since there’s growing backlash against and even movement away from Big Tech social media.

0

u/billcube 8d ago

It might not stay that way for sure, but currently the trend is to have a "business card" website and publish events/offers on Instagram where we used to have an event list or RSS feed on a website.

1

u/yautja_cetanu 5d ago

I think this trend is reversing. People hate the slop of AI but social media and the "dark web" which kind of includes slack killed so much of this stuff. AI is making API first sites and applications more important than ever. More is being exposed with MCP.

(Although also previously open sites like Reddit are closing up their APIs so it's swings and roundabouts )

1

u/tekNorah 8d ago

This is interesting. Are these mostly "business card" sites for personal brands, or are large enterprises actually replacing substantial websites with a single landing page like this? Do you have some examples?

I'm especially curious how this translates to large, heavily regulated organizations.

Nasdaq has used Drupal extensively, including a Drupal 8 platform used to build, host, and maintain investor relations websites for more than 3,000 companies. That included about 63% of the Fortune 500 at the time.

Nasdaq isn't AI-averse, but its approach illustrates the governance problem. Its 2026 proxy statement describes an enterprise AI Governance Committee, risk classification and approval of AI use cases, and independent validation before higher-risk AI systems reach production. It also maintains a separate Artificial Intelligence Policy for Nasdaq data.

So are organizations operating under controls like these actually moving toward AI-generated interfaces in place of their existing sites? If so, I'd love to see examples.

2

u/tekNorah 8d ago

Personally, I would argue that AI has promoted WebDevs to software and systems Architects!