NEW YORK, NY, February 18, 2026 (EZ Newswire) -- Major League Hacking (MLH), the largest developer programs platform in the world reaching more than 1 million developers through hackathons, meetups fellowships, open source programs, and mentorship, today announced the acquisition of DEV, the 3 million-strong digital community for software creators. By combining MLH’s experiential developer programs with DEV’s daily technical publishing platform and media site, the acquisition creates a centralized home for developers that supports a technologist's entire journey from their first "Hello World" to their first senior engineering role.
Creating The Core Community Infrastructure for Learning and Skills Development
MLH’s acquisition of DEV reflects its evolution from the college hackathon league into the leading professional development and skills lab for software creators. By pairing MLH’s decade of experience running hackathons and hands-on training programs with DEV’s daily publishing and peer-driven learning, the two are creating a clearer path for how developers learn, build, and grow their careers.
"MLH is where you build and break things in person. DEV is where those lessons live on. Whether you're shipping your first project or you're a senior engineer picking up AI skills for the first time, you're welcome here. In the AI era, everyone is a beginner again at some point, and we want to be the place where that's not just okay, but encouraged," said Mike Swift, co-founder and CEO of Major League Hacking.
The Partner of Choice for the AI Era
This acquisition also consolidates MLH and DEV as the primary distribution channel for the world's most significant AI and infrastructure companies. Leaders such as Google Gemini, GitHub, ElevenLabs, Snowflake, and DigitalOcean have already established partnerships within this ecosystem to bridge the gap between AI potential and actual developer adoption. 51% of MLH alumni have introduced a technology they learned from MLH into production at their job.
As AI lowers the barrier to entry for software creation, these companies are doubling down on community engagement. By putting tools directly into the hands of millions of software engineers and creators, MLH and DEV provide the real-world proving ground where the next generation of technical standards is established.