Join a Real Dev Team: Build & Deploy a Web App Using Python, Django and SQL

🎉 Welcome to the Team! 🎉

This isn't a boot camp. It's not a course.

Join us in the "🏢│Software Engineering" channel of our Discord server for an ongoing, real-world web development project – You're invited to join the team!

Ever wonder what it's like to join an existing software development team and jump into real code? Now is your chance. This isn't just a tutorial. It's a real project – already in motion – and you're joining the team!

✅ You'll join a real, ongoing project
✅ You'll work in a team environment
✅ You'll learn modern tools (Git, GitHub, Figma, Jira, etc.)
✅ You'll build with Python, Django, SQL – and AI
✅ You'll grow based on the tier you join

🛠 What You'll Be Doing

We're building a voting application that empowers everyday Americans to understand and engage with legislation on the national, state, and local level. Bills are often dense and difficult to read — so we're using the OpenAI API to help automatically summarize complex legislative text into clear, digestible language for the public.

Users will then be able to:

• View simplified versions of real bills
• Highlight each statement with green (agree), red (disagree), or grey (neutral)
• Generate a nuanced analysis based on their input
• Contribute to a collective public opinion profile that reflects what real citizens think

We're using:

• Python with the Django framework for our backend
• SQL for relational data and analysis tracking
• OpenAI API to summarize legislative text and extract key ideas
• HTML/CSS/JS for interactivity and user engagement
• Clean, accessible UI to make voting feel personal and easy to use

Together, we'll be:

• Building data models for bills, summaries, user responses, and AI output
• Integrating the OpenAI API to generate real-time summaries
• Designing intuitive interfaces for user voting and highlighting
• Creating logic to transform user input into readable public sentiment insights
• Managing permissions, user roles, and security best practices
• Deploying improvements in real-time and reviewing each other's code

🖼 Why This is Different

Most events are tutorials. This one is a real project that you can jump into and shape. You'll experience how it feels to collaborate, contribute to a live codebase, and see your work go live — while building a civic tech tool with real impact.

👥 Who Should Join

• Python beginners who want to apply their skills to a real Django app
• Developers curious about using AI tools like the OpenAI API
• Full-stack devs who want to contribute to a democracy-enhancing platform
• Anyone passionate about making legislation more accessible and inclusive

🎁 Benefits (Based on Your Tier)
👀 Observer (FREE Tier)

• Join live sessions
• Watch and listen to a real development team coding in real-time
• Join a growing community of software developers

👩‍💻 Apprentice Engineer (Premium Tier)

• Join live sessions with mic/video access
• Ask questions and receive answers in real-time
• Learn Git and GitHub workflows
• Join Pair Programming sessions via Live Share
• Contribute to code via pull requests
• Participate in weekly planning, retrospectives, and development syncs

🎨 Front-end Engineer (Premium Tier)

• All Apprentice benefits plus:
• Build intuitive user interfaces for highlighting and voting
• Work on design systems and visual feedback mechanisms
• Collaborate with designers in Figma and bring designs to life
• Ensure accessibility and responsiveness

🌐 Full-stack Engineer (Premium Tier)

• Everything in Frontend + Apprentice plus:
• Full access to Django views, models, serializers, and routing
• Work with SQL databases and custom queries
• Integrate and manage the OpenAI API for summarization
• Help build sentiment aggregation systems
• Learn secure handling of user input and data privacy best practices
• Manage deployment, testing, and project architecture

🎓 What You'll Learn

• Python and Django real-world application design
• SQL for modeling structured legislative data and responses
• Integrating AI with the OpenAI API
• Git, GitHub, pull requests, and collaborative development
• API design and secure backend development
• UI/UX for civic technology
• Real deployment strategies and live feature shipping
• SO MUCH MORE!

If you're interested in getting hands-on experience building real-world projects on a real team, sign up for a free trial on Patreon or just join the session as an observer to see what we're all about!