Considering that Java is one of the most popular programming languages, with an elite status in developer communities, it’s no surprise that the Twittersphere is full of Java chatter. If you’re looking for Java news, conference coverage, and groundbreaking innovation, these are the leaders to watch. From Java champions and rock stars to performance and open-source advocates, here are the 39 Java influencers you need to follow.
Arun Gupta
Gupta is a developer evangelist at Red Hat. He has also worked extensively with dev communities at Oracle and Sun, while collaborating on engineering teams as well. A JavaOne rock star, Gupta is a founding member of the Java EE team and a Java User Group (JUG) leader in the Bay Area. He is very active on the conference circuit, notably at Devoxx, where he founded the Devoxx4Kids US chapter.
Markus Eisele
A developer advocate at Lightbend Inc., Eisele has over 14 years of Java EE experience. In the Java world, he's the one who knows everybody. In addition to his technical skills, Eisele is a regular blogger. The Java champion frequents the conference circuit regularly. Follow Eisele for lots of Java and microservices coverage.
Mark Reinhold
Oracle’s Java Platform Group chief architect, Reinhold has a wealth of Java expertise, notably from his days as Sun Microsystems’ principal engineer of Java SE & Open JDK. You'll want to follow him for all announcements on the upcoming versions of Java.
Brian Goetz
An Oracle architect of Java Language and Libraries, Goetz is a seasoned author and practitioner. His book Java Concurrency in Practice exhibits his ability to relay technical topics in digestible, engaging ways. Goetz makes the conference circuit often, and he is frequently focused on Java performance.
Mario Fusco
Fusco is a Drools core developer at Red Hat. Among his plethora of publications is Java 8 Lambdas in Action. He maintains a regularly updated GitHub, and his Java dabbling includes working on the open-source lambda library and speaking at Devoxx and JavaOne.
Adam Bien
Bien has done it all—books, speaking, JavaOne rock star, Java champion—and he's been an expert group member for Java EE standards such as CDI, JAX-RS, EJB, and JPA. He's been a leader in the community since JDK 1.0, and he's always teaching the latest tips and tricks on his blog and airhacks.tv.
Simon Maple
Maple is ZeroTurnaround’s head of developer advocacy. A longtime JUG leader, he founded VirtualJUG, one of the top podcasts and online groups for Java programmers. A JavaOne rock star and Java champion, Maple is a distinguished wordsmith, as he’s an editor and technical writer at RebelLabs, a ZeroTurnaround content and research think tank.
David Blevins
An open-source Java EE expert, Blevins has been influential in defining Java EE specifications. The Tomitribe founder and CEO co-founded OpenEJB and helped build the TomEE stack. Blevins is also an active contributor to the Java Community Press.
Reza Rahman
Up until recently, Rahman was in charge of supporting the community component of Java EE's evolution at Oracle. Currently a senior manager and architect at CapTech Ventures, Rahman still supports the Java EE community. A regular conference speaker and award recipient, Rahman belongs to several veteran EJB, Java EE, and JMS groups. Follow Rahman for the latest on Java EE.
Josh Juneau
A Fermilab application developer and system analyst, Juneau is a seasoned developer. Among his specialties are developing in Groovy and SQL and for Java SE and EE applications. He is also a prolific writer of Java books and articles. Follow Juneau for loads of technical content, from tutorials to news and conference coverage.
Ken Fogel
NetBeans Dream Team member Fogel describes himself as being passionate about Java. He spreads his wealth of computer science knowledge as chairperson of computer science at Dawson College in Quebec. In addition to software, Fogel tweets about hardware and runs the fantastic Omni Java site, full of tutorials and information for programming fiends of all skill levels.
Lukas Eder
Eder is the distinguished minister of "bringing sanity back to Java/SQL development" at Data Geekery GmbH. He's a Java and SQL expert, and he created jOOQ to make it easier to write SQL in Java. Follow Eder for great technical content and entertaining developer humor.
Peter Lawrey
Lawrey is a Java performance specialist. The author of the insanely popular Vanilla Java blog, he’s the CEO of Higher Frequency Trading (HFT) Ltd. and lead developer of the OpenHFT project. HFT Ltd. focuses on Java performance, including low-latency and high-throughput applications.
Josh Long
Long has had a meteoric rise in the Java community over the last two years. That's because he's been deftly leading the charge for Spring Boot and cloud-native Java. A tireless speaker and demo presenter, Long has grown the grass-roots movement for Java microservices using Spring Boot's convention-over-configuration style.
Martijn Verburg
The leader of the London JUG and CEO of jClarity, Verburg is a Java performance expert who has contributed a great deal to the OpenJDK. He also offers mentoring services to CTOs and startup founders.
Bruce Eckel
Eckel is the author of Thinking in Java and Thinking in C++. A great communicator, he runs an excellent programming blog, Computing Thoughts, where he weighs in on everything from funding open-source projects to conducting Java 8 parallel operations. Follow Eckel for thought-provoking technical content and IT business tidbits.
Aleksey Shipilëv
As the Java performance geek at Oracle, Shipilëv is a self-described concurrency bug hunter and benchmarking czar. Shipilëv tweets about everything from JMM to OpenJDK and interacts with thought leaders such as Bruce Eckel and Peter Lawrey.
Richard Warburton
Warburton is a software developer, author, and trainer at Monotonic Ltd. He recently published Java 8 Lambdas, a deep dive into lambda expressions. His blog, Insightful Logic, is packed with Java awesomeness, covering everything from debuggers to CPU caching.
Nicolai Parlog
Parlog is an editor of SitePoint’s Java channel and a seasoned software developer, with a focus in Java and Haskell. He’s a strong open-source advocate and maintains the CodeFX blog, a stellar resource on Java 9, JUnit 5, and real-world examples from Parlog’s work.
Yegor Bugayenko
Bugayenko, the CTO at Teamed.io, is a self-described hands-on Java developer. He’s a VC investor at SeedRamp, and he dabbles in several open-source projects, including JCabi and Qulice. An active writer, he spreads his knowledge on controversial topics with articles such as “What’s Wrong with Object-Oriented Programming?” Follow Bugayenko for intriguing tech discussions, notably on OOP and code quality.
Stephen Chin
A lead Java community manager at Oracle, Chin is a Java guru and JavaFX evangelist. He is an active conference speaker and the host of the Nighthacking webcast series. Chin runs the aptly named website Steve On Java, with content ranging from conference coverage to retro gaming.
Monica Beckwith
An expert in all things JVM, Beckwith is a JavaOne Rockstar who has led Oracle’s Garbage First Garbage Collector performance team and authored the book Java Performance Companion. Check out her excellent presentation: "Java Performance Engineer's Survival Guide"
Gerrit Grunwald
Grunwald may have the greatest Twitter handle on this list. The senior software engineer at Canoo has a passion for JavaFX and is an engaged JUG founder and leader. He’s a Java champion and JavaOne rock star who also has a keen interest and expertise in the IoT space.
Trisha Gee
A developer advocate for JetBrains, Gee is passionate about engaging the developer community by sharing her wealth of Java knowledge. Dedicated to improving the dev experience, she broadcasts her message through a variety of mediums, from speaking engagements to blogging and webinars. Follow Gee for excellent conference coverage and regular Java updates via JetBrains’ Java Annotated Monthly series.
Peter Pilgrim
Pilgrim is a hands-on Java developer experienced in JavaFX, JavaEE, and Scala. The author of Digital Java EE 7 Development and Java EE 7 Developer Handbook, Pilgrim has spoken at gatherings including Devoxx UK 2016 and JavaCRO 2014. While he shares plenty of Java thoughts, Pilgrim is also an excellent source for web development and agile content.
Vlad Mihalcea
A Hibernate developer advocate at Red Hat, Mihalcea is the author of High Performance Java Persistence. His regular writings may be found on his blog, and he’s active on GitHub and Stack Overflow as well. A general tech guru, Mihalcea is a must-follow for all things related to high-performance Java and microservices.
Marcus Biel
Within the Java space, Biel is passionate about clean code. The self-described software craftsman is an SOA specialist with GmbH and a clean code evangelist. He regularly shares his thoughts on clean code, as well as Java tutorials centered on code structure, with his more than 23,000 followers.
David Delabassee
Delabassee is an Oracle Java EE evangelist whose past experience includes working as a Java ambassador with Sun Microsystems. Delabassee is a great resource for the latest development happenings, from discussing trends in the tech industry to tweeting about serverless architecture, microservices, and IoT.
Bruno Borges
Borges is a principal product manager of developer engagement at Oracle. As an evangelist, he focuses on Java EE, cloud computing, and JavaFX. Borges also manages and collaborates on Oracle’s Docker endeavor on GitHub.
David Heffelfinger
Heffelfinger is a senior Java EE consultant and the author of resource books covering Java, NetBeans, JasperReports, and GlassFish. His specialties include JavaServer Faces, Java EE APIs, Java Persistence APIs, and JAX-RS. Often hitting the conference circuit, he can usually be found spreading knowledge at events such as JavaOne.
Nicolas Frankel
Frankel has over 15 years of software architecture experience, with a focus on Java, JavaEE, and Spring. An expert, he has engaged audiences at JavaLand, JavaZone, JEEConf, and Spring One and has written books on subjects such as integration testing. Frankel’s passions include software quality and build processes. Follow him for tech talk ranging from security to agile.
Javin Paul
Paul is a software architect at Infotech with a boatload of Java experience. He shares his technical expertise on his Java67 and Javarevisited blogs. The programmer and prolific blogger has a twitter field full of tutorials.
Eugen Paraschiv
Paraschiv is passionate about spreading his knowledge. He's a platform architect at Uptake, and his site Baeldung makes him a go-to for all things Spring. He is the author of courses on Spring security and REST with Spring, and he manages other courses and excellent resources on Baeldung. It's a must-read site for any Java developer.
Thorben Janssen
Janssen is a senior software developer with QualiType GmbH, as well as a writer and trainer. His appropriately named Thoughts on Java website details his Java dabbling, including neat posts with lots of Hibernate content. Check out his awesome Java Weekly series for the latest updates on the rapidly evolving space.
Christoph Engelbert
Engelbert is a self-confessed Java geek and open-source advocate. As the manager of dev relations at Hazelcast, he has a deep appreciation and understanding of performance optimization, and he also runs sourceprojects.org, a great open-source Java resource page.
Rafael Winterhalter
Winterhalter is a developer at Scienta AS and a software consultant. His many accolades include being a Java champion and a JavaOne rock star. He’s also a frequent conference speaker and the author of Byte Buddy, a code-generation library for Java class creation.
Simon Ritter
Azul Systems' deputy CTO, Ritter is a JVM and Java evangelist. He has been at the center of Java's story since his days at Sun Microsystems and Oracle as a technology evangelist.
Joseph Darcy
Darcy is a JDK developer, engineer, and writer. He’s a regular blogger on deep Java topics and regularly speaks on the major Java conference circuit. Follow Darcy for excellent technical tips and tricks.
Stephen Colebourne
As an engineering lead at Open Gamme and the project lead at Joda, Colebourne is an open-source guru and Java architect. He’s focused not only on development, but also on a bigger-picture understanding of the space and how it can be improved. Colebourne was instrumental in the creation of a better date and time class in Java.
Paul Sandoz
Sandoz is a software engineer at Oracle, and consulting member of the technical staff. Aside from his work at Oracle, he’s a published author, having co-written JAX-RS—Java API for RESTful Web Services, with Marc Hadley. Sandoz regularly interacts with the likes of Aleksey Shipilev, John Rose, and Brian Goetz on Twitter.
Are there any other Twitter handles you would add to this list?
Be sure to check out the comments! There have been some great additions since this article was published!
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