Derex.dev

I'm @drogo, a software engineer, who dabbles in the secrets of writing.

This site is where I publish blogs and articles. The section that's most updated most often is atoms, small multimedia particles reminiscent of a Twitter feed. I update my now page monthly according to what I'm working on and thinking about. I publish a newsletter as often as I can.

Once in a while, I write longer form articles on technical and non technical subjects.

  • Sell Your Self
    Mar 18, 2025

    I used to believe that good work speaks for itself. That if I just focused on building great things, recognition would follow. But i was wrong.

  • Celebrating Codenight's Impact
    Feb 25, 2025

    When Codenight started, it was just late night code sessions among friends. Now, it’s a movement of 9,000 developers shaping Ethiopia’s tech scene. Standing before 300 developers at Developer Meetup V3, I realized this isn’t just about code. It’s about building something bigger.

  • The Unfiltered Self
    Jan 2, 2025

    I used to think writing was just a tool, something meant to be structured, polished, and purposeful. But then I saw a man in a coffee shop, furiously filling page after page in a worn notebook. No structure, no audience just raw, unfiltered thoughts.

I publish a newsletter about the Codenight community on Substack:

  • Codenight Weekly 045
    Mar 5, 2026

    Discover the hottest new projects from our community: open-source Linux screen recorders, AI-powered TrustGrid Ethiopia, Current.fm Spotify streaming, GitYapper & more.

  • Codenight Weekly 044
    Feb 19, 2026

    The real cost of "free" is becoming the dominant theme of our technical landscape, and this week’s digest highlights exactly where those lines are being drawn.

  • Codenight Weekly 043
    Feb 3, 2026

    This week the community proved that execution beats rhetoric, launching everything from Jano Fidel, a programming language with native Ge’ez support, to a new local AI platform built for developers.

I put short stream of consciousness thoughts into tiny posts called fragments: