Whenever you show a list of developers you consider “experts,” “thought leaders,” or “influencers,” there’s a risk to offend somebody who’s not in it or who can’t see in it all the people they consider as influential.
So let’s talk for a minute about how I chose the engineers, who are part of my little research…
I opened Google and searched for the following keywords: “best javascript developers”, “javascript experts,” “javascript developers to follow,” and “influential javascript developers.”
Then I picked up some of the links that look like a compiled list of professionals. It’s important to note that I don’t know anything about the authors’ processes like:
How did they decide to include somebody in their list?
For this reason, we must consider them totally subjective sources of information.
Nevertheless, when you try to find who are the biggest names in the community, Google shows you these web pages, and you are inclined to believe that they are the most worthy of mention.
But there is more to the story…
After gathering the data that includes raw information from 61 GitHub profiles, 109 social profiles (Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, etc.), and 115 other online sources, I concluded that my final list of developers is somewhat accurate.
Not complete in any way, but accurate…
Why?
Because these 61 engineers have a following, counting 4,407,212 people on Twitter and 675,960 developers on GitHub. They’ve contributed collectively to 10,162 repositories, and among these repos are some mega-popular libraries, frameworks, and projects like Next.js, d3, Lodash, Underscore, and more.
Moreover, many of them are published book authors and professional public speakers on the very topics we’re interested in as javascript developers.
Pretty impressive, right?
Let’s see who is on the list…
Dan Abramov (@dan_abramov)
Front-end developer, ReactJS
Sophie Alpert (@sophiebitshttps://twitter.com/dan_abramov)
Head of engineering, Humu
Wes Bos (@wesbos)
Full-stack developer
Wassim Chegham (@manekinekko)
Senior developer advocate, Microsoft
Andrew Clark (@acdlite)
Core team, ReactJS
Kent C. Dodds (@kentcdodds)
Software engineer and teacher
Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo)
VP of developer experience, Netlify
Brendan Eich (@BrendanEich)
Co-founder and CEO of Brave Software; creator of JavaScript
Eric Elliott (@ericelliott)
Co-founder/director of engineering, DevAnywhere.io
Ryan Florence (@ryanflorence)
CEO/co-founder, React Training
Minko Gechev (@mgechev)
Senior developer relations engineer, Google
Charlie Gerard (@devdevcharlie)
Senior front-end developer, Netlify
Shruti Kapoor (@shrutikapoor08)
Senior software engineer, PayPal
Ania Kubów (@ania_kubow)
Software engineer, Eurostar
Gant Laborde (@GantLaborde)
CIO, Infinite Red
Tracy Lee (@ladyleet)
CEO, This Dot Labs
Ben Lesh (@BenLesh)
RxJS project lead and senior software engineer
Addy Osmani (@addyosmani)
Engineering manager, Google Chrome
Guillermo Rauch (@rauchg)
CEO, Vercel
Axel Rauschmayer (@rauschma)
Author, Speaking JavaScript
Greg Sidelnikov (@javascriptual)
Author
Faye Sipiano (@JavaScriptCoff1)
Developer/community advocate
Ali Spittel (@ASpittel)
Senior developer advocate, AWS Amplify
Karolina Szczur (@fox)
Co-owner and product design lead, Calibre
Joel Thoms (@joelnet)
Principal software engineer, Paciolan
Eddy Vinck (@EddyVinckk)
Front-end developer, DEITY
David Walsh (@davidwalshblog)
Senior software engineer, MetaMask
Rich Harris (@rich_harris)
Graphics Editor at The New York Times
Kyle Simpson (@getify)
Author & Trainer
Gregory Brown (@practicingdev)
Software developer
Evan You (@youyuxi)
Independent Software Developer
Nicole Archambault (@lavie_encode)
Web Developer
Loiane Groner (@loiane)
Business analyst and senior JavaScript developer
Chris Heilmann (@codepo8)
Principal Program Manager for Browser Tools at Microsoft
Benedikt Meurer (@bmeurer)
Tech lead of Chrome DevTools
Jessica Shepherd (javascript_jess)
Full-stack web developer
Cassidy Williams (@cassidoo)
Principal Developer Experience Engineer @netlify
John Resig (@jeresig)
Expert in the JavaScript programming language
Lea Verou (@leaverou)
Front-end web developer
Joseph Zimmerman (@joezimjs)
JavaScript developer
John-David Dalton (@jdalton)
Javascript developer
TJ Holowaychuk (@tjholowaychuk)
Founder of Apex
Sindre Sorhus (@sindresorhus)
Full-time open-sourcerer
Paul Irish (@paul_irish)
Staff Software Engineer, Google Chrome
Mike Bostock (@mbostock) Creator @d3js_org
Mark Otto (@mdo)
Principal Design & Brand Architect at GitHub
John Papa (@john_papa)
Web technologist, leader, and Storyteller
Jeremy Ashkenas (@jashkenas)
Creator of CoffeeScript
Jessica Lord (@jlord)
Staff Product Manager, GitHub Sponsors at GitHub
Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier)
Co-founder of CodePen
Ryan Dahl
Creator of Deno
Christian Nwamba (@codebeast)
JavaScript Open Source Developer
Gift Egwuenu (@lauragift)
Frontend Consultant & Author
Samantha Ming (@samantha_ming)
Front-end Developer
André Staltz (@andrestaltz)
Creator of cyclejs
Mathias Bynens (@mathias)
Staff Software Engineer at Google
Mark Dalgleish (@markdalgleish)
Design Systems Engineering Lead at SEEK
Sophie Koonin (@type__error)
Senior Web Engineer
Alex Russell (@slightlylate)
Partner Program Manager on Microsoft Edge
CJ Silverio (@ceejbot)
Distinguished Engineer at Eaze
Anjana Vakil (@anjanavakil)
Software Engineer & Educator
