Supporting the Next Generation of Open Source Contributors
We’ve all seen the impacts of open source through large projects like Node.js, but the foundation of the open source ecosystem consists of thousands of smaller, more narrowly-focused projects companies depend on every day to deliver value to their users. While many developers are motivated to contribute to well-known open source projects, countless bug fixes and feature requests for critical but lesser-known platforms sit dormant until someone finds the bandwidth to contribute.
Enabling early-career developers to contribute to these smaller projects through programs like the MLH Fellowship is a win-win situation for the open source ecosystem. Emerging talent gets hands-on real world experience, while open source maintainers get access to critical support. This open exchange of knowledge and experience through collaboration is exactly what open source is all about!
Good for Students. Good for the Future of Open Source.
Engineers today have a lot on their plates. According to the TideLift’s 2023 Open Source Maintainer Report, almost 60% of maintainers have quit or considered quitting maintaining one of their projects. Of those that considered quitting, 44% said they were experiencing burnout. Finding the time to properly maintain an open source project on top of your team’s existing workload can be difficult.
To make it even more challenging, sourcing, and training new contributors isn’t exactly easy to do. Onboarding new contributors to a project can be very time-intensive, especially developers new to open source or engineering as a whole. From training someone to make their first pull request (properly!) to teaching them how to communicate effectively with more experienced engineers, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with how much knowledge needs to be shared.
This is where programs like the MLH Fellowship can help. The MLH Fellowship provides the structure and training required to reduce a maintainer’s time recruiting, onboarding, and resolving small bugs. The MLH Fellowship facilitates the mentorship process, takes care of onboarding, and handles the critical pieces of basic developer training.
As an added benefit for your business and recruiting teams, building a working relationship with new developers and seeing how they actually write code and collaborate will give you a much more holistic view of someone’s abilities than simply reading and screening resumes. According to the Open Source Jobs Report released in June 2022 by the Linux Foundation, 59% of hiring managers report organic growth is driving demand for open source talent.
Learning Software Engineering Through Hands-On Projects
Developers who are early in their career often have limited opportunities to learn how production code bases are created and work in reality. The traditional track of landing an internship at a large company, where you get to contribute to their closed-source software, is incredibly competitive. For this next generation of new developers, open source can provide the same learning opportunities and exposure to advanced software with a much lower barrier to entry.
For new developers with a textbook understanding of programming, contributing to an open source project is an excellent way to learn how to both interpret and read complex software as well as actually go through the process of modifying and improving it. This practical experience is critical for helping new developers adapt effectively to new projects and can make it much easier to integrate new developers into an established team of engineers.
Contributing to open source can be a life changing experience for many new developers. As one of our MLH Fellowship graduates shared in a recent blog post about their experience in the program, “Raising my first pull request was a very exciting moment for me! The open source contributions I’ve made have strengthened my resume and provided proof of my capabilities as a developer.
Sponsoring the Future of Open Source
The MLH Fellowship frequently partners with companies invested in maintaining open source projects that underpin their business and more broadly, care deeply about the open source ecosystem. We’re proud to work with incredible companies like Meta, Google, Royal Bank of Canada Global Asset Management, and Solana Foundation through this program.
Learn more about the MLH Fellowship and how we are supporting the next generation of open source contributors on our website. Feel free to book a call with our team, and be sure to say hello at ATO 2023!
The Featured Blog Posts series highlights posts from partners and members of the All Things Open community leading up to ATO 2023.