Okay. Can people hear me okay? We're good. All right. Thanks. So I guess we can officially
say good afternoon. Thanks for coming. My name is Ray Paik. I'll let the panelists introduce
himself in a few minutes. It's a little weird because we have to be here for the camera,
but we'll make it work. So I'm a community manager at Pincap. If you're not familiar
with Pincap, we're a company behind the open source database, TIDB. And if you're part
of CNCF, you may have heard about a couple of other projects that we donated to the foundation.
First one is ChaosMesh, and the other one is TikeAB, which is our key value database.
I've been at Pincap since April of last year, and I started my career in open source community
management about 10 years ago when I joined the Linux Foundation. I was there for about four
years. Then I had community manager roles at GitLab and CubeDev before I ended up at Pincap.
I don't know how you all felt about 2023. 2023 felt somewhat difficult, especially on the job
front for people in open source. I myself was laid off, but I was fortunate. I was wrapping up my
interview process at Pincap, so I think I accepted my offer a week or two after I was given a notice.
So I was fine, but then you had this constant drumbeat of negative music. It seemed like companies
that we thought were at the forefront of open source were making significant cuts to the community
teams. Open source program office is just completely being obliterated. I couldn't tell for a long
time last year that whether this is just another boom and bust cycle in the high tech industry or
there's something more fundamental going on. I did a lot of thinking about open source careers,
and then so I decided to propose this panel. Glad to have a wonderful panel this year. I'll let
the audience introduce themselves. I'll look at you want to get you want to start? Yes, I hope you
can hear me too. So thanks. My name is Ildeco Vanja. I work for the Open Infrastructure Foundation as
Director of Community. The Open Infra Foundation is an open source foundation that hosts and helps
support open source software development communities into software infrastructure space like OpenStack,
Cata Containers, Starling Access, all our examples of the projects that we have. I joined the
foundation seven and a half years ago, so I'm already on the record in terms of longest
employment of my life. So you can tell that I like working working here. Before the foundation, I used
to work for Ericsson, which is a large telecom vendor company, so very different environment. However,
that's where I got in touch with open source. I started to contribute to the OpenStack project, and my
first experience was so wonderful that I just couldn't stop afterwards. I became a really big open
source advocate. And open source became a fundamental part of my life to the level that now my full
time job is is all about open source and working with communities and the ecosystem and anyone who
would like to get involved or maybe they don't like yet that they would like to get involved, but that's
where I come in and convince them that that's the best idea that they will have in their lives. So yeah,
that's me in a nutshell.
Okay, I had technical difficulties. So I'm Don Foster. I am the Director of Data Science and
Governing Board Member for the Chaos Project. I'm also on the board of an organization called Open UK. I
live just outside of London. And I'm also a co chair for the CNCF contributor strategy technical
advisory group. So I tend to wear a few a few different hats. I got my start, well, I came out of
university with a computer science degree in the mid 90s, and I somehow managed to luck my way into a
Unix system administration job. So my very first job out of university. And back then I worked for a
manufacturing company and manufacturing companies do not like to spend money on software. So I used a
lot of open source software just in the nature of being a system administrator. And then fast forward a
couple of years, I was at Intel in around 2000 2001. And they needed someone to look at which open
source projects were going to be strategic for for them over the next, you know, number of years. So which
ones should we be engaged in which ones should we be working with and I was working mostly at the time in
the kind of the Linux developer tools space, I think like compilers and IDEs. So so that was sort of my
first first role that was more focused on open source. And then over the years, I managed to somehow turn
that into a full time thing where I was community manager and a few different companies. I've done I've done
lots of different things in my open source career over the years. Most recently, before chaos, I was at
VMware and I was their director of open source community strategy. So I've done little little bits of things
in open source over the years.
Alison Randall. So I also started my career in open source in the 90s or through software since we didn't have the
name yet then. I was working at a startup, as an online bookseller that just happened to use Pearl as their
development language. I'd used Pearl a little bit before for linguistic research, but that was when I really
got into it. And within a year, I was teaching Pearl at the local Linux user group. And then I got sucked into
Pearl design work by the development team. And then I got sucked into being project manager and the president of
the foundation. And it kind of went from there. So I've been involved in a lot of different projects, but you'll
know some of them. Debbie and Ubuntu open stack. I'm currently chair of the board of software freedom
conservancy on the board of open infrastructure foundation and also on the board of open usage comments.
Cool. So yeah, I mean, I was really excited about the panel because we bring a lot of different backgrounds and
different way you've got introduced the open source. So I guess I'll ask this question to you out, Alison is like, so
20 plus years, like what motivates you to keep saying in open source? Like what are the things that you enjoy the
most about the open source communities?
I mean, for me, hindsight is clear. It really has always come down to the people and the things that we built
together. And that's partly the software that we build together. We've built some really amazing tech. But it's also the
communities we've built and the styles of collaboration we've invented. And, you know, the legal structures that
supported those very different ways of working together. And that's what really stands the test of time. You know, you can get
distracted by the politics and all of that. That's not really what matters. What matters is the people and what you're
building.
Anything else you want to add or?
Yeah, plus plus one to the people. It's been it's been an amazing career, right? Like I I've met people and I know people all
over the world and I can I can go almost anywhere and find someone that I've worked with on a project somewhere to sit down and
have a coffee with no matter no matter where I am. And so it's yeah, I've just met so many amazing, wonderful people.
I can I can also plus one that that notion. And the other thing is that when it comes to open source, I mean, the majority of
the people are there because they are interested in the project and the technology they had they share the goals. They they work on
something that's in their common interest. So you find people who are enthusiastic about what they do. And it is a great
environment to be in and to be part of. And like knowing people all around the globe, you learn a lot about cultures. And you
just have access to so much knowledge that we share with each other on a daily basis. And you get so many different points of
view that it's just it's very hard to match in any corporate environment in my experience.
So the flip side of that question is, because we talked about all the positives and what we enjoy the most. Are there
examples of time when you wonder to yourself, like, what am I doing with my life? And maybe this isn't for me. Like, I mean,
maybe it doesn't have to be that dramatic. But anything you want to share?
I mean, I do like what I what I do today. And that's that's why I keep doing it. There's there's ups and downs, no matter
what you do. When it comes to open source, like back in my, let's say, corporate days. I think that it would have been
better if I spent a little bit more time understanding corporate politics and navigating how open source can fit into a
product development environment, and figuring out how to work with with our managers to also help them understand.
Because there there are a lot of examples where where you're a developer, you're working on the code, you know what you're
doing, you know why you're doing it, you're enthusiastic about it. But there are so many other people in the company who are
trying to make sure that there's a product schedule that the customer is happy that the company makes revenue because
otherwise, we are all in big trouble. So there are a lot of moving pieces. And you who are actively participating in an open
source community to you, it's crystal crystal crystal crystal clear. There you go. What's happening. But but someone like a
manager who's a program manager trying to again make sure that the product is on track. They don't know they don't have the
experience. They just see something from the outside. So helping them understand how these communities work, what you need to
do to be effective in that community and also be effective in the company where you're working. That that can be an
interesting balance and an interesting challenge. And when I was very new to it, I think I stumbled on a few mistakes that I would
do differently today.
Cool. Anything else you want to add or we can move on. But I mean, you mentioned balance. And I think one of the, like
challenges that you hear a lot of different events like including your FOSM is that people talk a lot about work life
balance or trying to maintain balance in general. And then maybe Don, I'll ask this question to you because you work. I mean,
before you joined, you came on board a chaos full time. You're at VMware. So I mean, you're actively involved in Kubernetes and other
communities, but that's not 100% of your job. You have responsibility as a VMware employee. And how difficult is that balancing at
like trying to be a good open source citizen, but also trying to be a good employee.
Yeah, that can be
Okay, so so that can be a real, a real challenge. I, you know, I think on the one hand, I was I was just super lucky, right?
Because my managers at VMware were really supportive of the work that I did. At the time I was contributing to Kubernetes and to the
chaos project and a few other things. And so they were, they were very supportive of me spending that that time. But I also take
the approach where I, and I didn't always do this, I've burnt out a couple of times in tech, like, like many people have, where I
tried to do all the things. And now I'm super protective of my personal time. And I, you know, I kind of work as a
set number of hours. And then when I'm done, I'm done. And the only way I can do that is by being really brutal about
prioritization and just saying no to the things that aren't that important so that I can focus on the things that are, whether
they're the things I'm working on in open source communities, or the parts of my, you know, at the time, real, real day job. And
then I'm, I'm sort of lucky now that I, I do, I will admit right now I have, I have my dream job. So the data piece, the
open source metrics with chaos has always been my passion project. So being able to do that full time is, is been pretty
great.
I would like to applaud Don for being able to do the prioritization that that you made the decision and you're sticking to it
because I suck. I am also in my dream job. But to me, that did not help with spending not too much time on it.
And I think when it comes to open source and also what we are doing right now, especially after COVID, like so many of us are
working from home. And to me, just the working from home setup, whether it's open source or not open source work, I like to be
enthusiastic about whatever I do. So that setup, to me, makes it already really hard to find a balance because like the left
corner of the table is the work corner and the right is where I have my personal time when I eat lunch. Like that, that just
doesn't really work well for me. And I think that Don also mentioned burnout, that that is something that probably most of us who are
enthusiastic to an extreme level will experience at least once. So I share all the challenges and I can, I can only recommend
that once you experience burnout once, you do have a choice from that point because you do have the full end to end experience. You
know what the signs are that lead to burnout. So you do have the choice when you are seeing the signs next time to stop to know
that, okay, I'm not going forward like this anymore, because I know where it leads. So you do have the tools with the experience that
you're gaining, even if you don't find the right balance right at the beginning.
Cool.
There's just so many interesting things to do in open source. It's hard to choose one or two.
No, I'm like Don said, I'm all for setting boundaries. I mean, I work for work with a lot of colleagues in China, and I'm in Pacific
time zone. And between five and seven, it's really difficult to say no to a quick call. But I think most of my colleagues now like between
six to 8pm, that's family time, I need to have dinner with them. And they understand like if you have the right corporate culture that
works, but it's really hard to do some time. So, so go ahead.
Just a quick note, like I just started to work with a new community. And they they are very active in Europe and Asia
Pacific. I also am in the US on West Coast time. And I work with two communities in total and the other communities very North
America centric with a few people in Asia Pacific. So I have all the three major time zone regions to cover. So I'm currently in the
process of trying to find a new balance because I can work 24 seven so easily because there's always someone awake.
Who's very active in the community that I'm working with, who I could talk to, why could solve a challenge for and it can be very
hard when it comes to the time zone challenges, especially if you're like really working with global communities.
So when when I first like opened our talk, I mean, we talked about like the job market like last year. But for people that are
looking for jobs in open source, like I mean, are there any advice like any of you like to share like in terms of, you know, first
of all, finding the interesting openings that you might you might want to pursue interviewing tips, etc, etc, finding the right
culture.
Okay, I can start. I would say that my my biggest piece of advice when you're looking for work is is to use your use your
network. So I think in my entire career, I have only I've only ever had one job that I got from applying through the traditional
channels. Every other job I've ever gotten has been because of someone I knew. And in a lot of cases, these were people that I knew
through my work in open source through these open source communities. So when you're when you're looking for work, just, you
know, spend some time talking to some of the people that work in the communities that you're interested in, and who work at
companies that you might want to work at or organizations that you might want to work at and talk to them, you know, ask them what
it's like at that company and see if it might be a good fit for you, ask them what kind of job openings they have, and just
just talk to people and get other people's suggestions. Because once you talk to enough people, they will generally know of other
people that you can talk to that maybe you weren't already connected to. So so don't be shy about talking to the people that you
know and asking them asking them their advice and what it's like where they're where they're working.
Yeah, I think that when it comes to open source, like, you're operating in a public environment, whatever that you do is public. So you can
also point to things that you've done. It's it's much easier to build a resume as well if you're active in open source. So it's the connections
and also the work that you you've already done. And another thing that kind of connects back to sort of early mistakes. That for I think
that was the first question or along those lines. Like, building connections really is truly important. Like when you're attending an
event, you can you can prioritize to listen to talks. But I would challenge you and say that if you're not interested in talking to
the speaker after the talk or talking to people in the room who are interested in the same topic, then is that really the best
session you could choose in that particular time slot because you can always have access to the content later. Many conferences are
recording presentations and even if they don't, the the information is out there floating on the internet one way or the other. But the
person doesn't. And the in person connection is invaluable. Like I have a lot of experience, you know, jumping in new communities and you do
that on the online channels first. But whenever you get the opportunity to actually talk to a few people in person, the online
interaction just becomes so completely different, way more efficient and usually a much more pleasant experience. And then those
connections are also could be the ones that are lending you a new job because those people know you, they trust you and they can
give a recommendation at the company where they work that, hey, there's this person, we've been working together in this community and they
are so amazing and they're looking for a job or maybe they are not looking for a job, but we should get them anyway. So that's that's a great way to
go. I would I would add keep in mind that there's not just one way to have a job in open source, you know, pretty much any job these days that's
related to software is going to be related to open source. So in my career, I've often switched between like doing all my
volunteer, all my open source development as a volunteer and doing paid work that's like running an open source conference or managing an
open source foundation. And then also I've done it the other way around where my paid work was open source development and then I was as a
volunteer serving as a board member or you know, a community manager or something like that in an open source project. So like, don't be afraid to
mix things up and yeah, find a way to get paid but also find a way to like live your passions.
Cool. So somewhat related to that I guess I mean you've done lots of hiring over the years for open source rules. When you interview
candidates like what do you typically look for?
I can I can start. So obviously the skills that you need for a particular job depends on the job. But when it comes to open
source interacting with people and being a team player is kind of a requirement. It doesn't mean that you have to be an extra
word. I'm an introvert. I know so many people in open source who are totally introverts. But since we are all so passionate about
what we are doing, that is not a barrier for us to participate. So the willingness to interact with people and to even if you're
not comfortable with the public environment fully yet, but the willingness to be and to do so, that is very important because you will need
to interact with people from all over the place. And if you're quiet and shy and you don't want to be out there, then it is very hard to
get successful in open source in my experience. So that's definitely up on the list of being able to do that.
Do you want to take the mic?
I would say that I generally look for someone who has enough of the skills that we're looking for that they can probably do the job knowing
that there will be pieces of the work that they'll need help with later. So one of the things I will caution you about is that job
descriptions on the website are wish lists. They are not requirements. I have never in all of my years had every single thing listed on that job
description as a skill. And they still give me the job. And I still, I guess, I seem to be successful. And so don't look at those.
As a list of requirements, look at those as a list of things that they would like that person to have because they're not going to get that unicorn.
They're not going to get that person with every single one of those skills. They're going to get somebody who has enough of those skills to do the job, and then they're going to train them on the rest of it.
So make sure that you go ahead and apply for stuff, even if you don't think that you have everything, because in a lot of cases they'll be willing to take a chance on you and train you up on some of the other bits.
And also, like, if they see that you're passionate about that particular job and you have an idea of why you would be the best person to do that job, that usually gets you through the interviews as well.
And that, like, if you don't have a skill that's listed, then they will more likely overlook that because you're someone who's already in that mindset that you're ready for that job.
So I totally agree with that observation. I don't think I ever checked all the boxes either. I think that's impossible.
Most of the time the job description is also written in a way to just be a little bit scary. I assume they are trying to limit how many people are submitting applications just because the job description looked like you need a 200-year work experience before you apply.
But really, most of the things you will be able to learn and don't be afraid to learn.
And if you're also open about that, at least to me that was always appealing when a person is honest about, okay, this I don't know yet, but I can learn it.
And for most of the tech jobs, you will never stop learning.
So if you have that ambition that will take you from A to B and then from B to C and you're able to grow, that is always very appealing.
Like, again, the ability to grow, that is another thing that at least I personally look for, to see that the person will be able to grow into the job that they are applying for.
But then they will also be able to grow further out of their job and do something else in the company.
Really, a job where you already know everything before you start it is super boring.
So look for the jobs that you will learn something really interesting and that will lead you on to other jobs where you learn even more interesting things.
Yeah, I mean, we don't mean to harp on a job description too much, but the other thing I want to add is, by the time you accept the position and start,
it could have been three, four, five months since that job description was originally written.
So think about that, after a quarter, things change, the market's changed, there was a reorganization of the company.
So, I mean, that's why I try not to take job description as a gospel, although it's very tempting.
Because you want to check all the boxes as many as you can, but it's just a guideline.
Like, it's an educated guess as to what the new person might be doing, but it's still a guess.
So, sorry, I'm going to the list here.
So, I think what I've seen some people do, like, you start in open source, but then you step back, you take a different role, you do a non-open source role.
I think some of you have done that in your career.
Like, can you talk about that experience and why you, I don't know if you were forced to do that, or why did you just step away and what was it like coming back into open source?
I've done it multiple times, I mean, three decades is a long time.
I mean, some of it was layoffs, you know, it happens, but more of it was often, I mean, there's reasons like family health, there's reasons like kids,
there's reasons like I took a break to do a PhD, you know, there's all kinds of good reasons to take a break, but another one is to avoid burnout.
So, if you think you have to stay in the one project forever, you will work yourself and work yourself and work yourself.
But if you recognize it's totally okay to just go away for a couple years and, you know, either come back to that project or a totally different project that excites you two years from now.
Like, it feels less devastating to step aside from a project and you can do a well planned orderly handoff instead of a flame out burnout.
If you push yourself all the way to flame out burnout, chances are you will never work in open source again because you burned yourself too far down.
You can come back, but it's much, much harder than if you just recognize the signs and say, oh, you know, I should really take a couple years off and do something else.
And then you come back revitalized.
So, yeah, I actually, I highly recommend taking a break from time to time. It's a really good idea.
Cool.
Yeah, I've also had the occasional detour.
I had one that was the company that I worked for, the politics around open source internally just got to be too much for me.
And so I spent six months working in a, like, a market research department or something, something kind of random that I thought was a little bit interesting.
But, you know, in the other way, I think that can help with, you know, burnout and just kind of, you know, doing something new is I've worked in loads of different open source communities.
So, chaos is probably the one that I've worked in the longest because I've been working with these tools since before the, before the organization existed.
But in a lot of cases, I've worked in, you know, kind of a series of open source projects based, frankly, on what the company that I was working for was particularly interested in.
But the thing that I found was that in every time I switched from an open source community to another, I found that there was at least one person that I knew from a previous open source community.
So even when you kind of bounce from community to community, there are usually other people that you know from previous lives in other communities.
I do not have the experience yet. I'm still burning myself to learn the lesson.
But to Don's point, I did see people, like, moving from one employer to the other, but still working in the same open source project.
And also the popping up at another community and like, oh, hi.
Like, you're here too. Cool.
And it's just, it kind of shows you that the world gets a little bit smaller if you keep being involved in open source and you just know people.
And the connections that you make will more likely to stay with you longer than in a corporate environment where you're just jumping, jumping companies.
And that's a really nice experience.
Even if I assume that even when you're taking a break and you come back and you see some familiar faces, but the project is new, that's kind of a nice mixture of I'm doing something new, but I don't have to make all new buddies to go from A to B.
So yeah.
Cool. So yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, I think earlier we were talking about like regrets or mistakes.
I mean, the one I made personally was, I mean, I was working at Intel.
We got reorg and then I had to stop working on open source, which was devastating.
And then I think the mistake I made was I just spent time like sulking and being depressed.
And I mean, that's fine.
But what I should have done is do more productive and try to get engaged in the open source community somehow, find a different project, show up to meet ups, et cetera, et cetera, rather than feeling sorry for myself.
So I think getting reorg then maybe getting laid off are two good examples.
Like if you're a force away from like open source, like, you know, what advice do you have for, you know, maybe just stay engaged in the community somehow.
I think nowadays it's easier.
But, you know, what kind of approaches do you take to find a new community to join or like how do you keep up to date on what's happening out there?
I have an example that's kind of slightly connecting to the questions.
I will share it.
I used to do trainings like how to contribute to OpenStack trainings one or two days before, prior to big events where a lot of people traveled to.
And I met a lot of different people with very different motivations of why they were at that training.
Some of them were just like it was free and then they were already there and it seemed interesting.
And a lot of people kept asking like they do the training, they learn about the tools, the processes in the community.
So what should they do next, what they should work on?
And I always kept asking back like what are you interested in?
Because I can point you to the low hanging fruit bugs.
That's easy.
But once you fix the bug and then you fix another one, then the third one is like why am I doing this in the first place?
If you're not interested in the particular technology or you don't have a motivation to be at that particular place.
So I would say that don't ever let anyone else tell you what you should do.
Go where you feel passionate.
Like learning, when you learn something new, where you're interested in the technology.
And if you get involved then you will have the connections and then the job will come around as well.
If you want a paid job that also works with that particular technology.
So I would say that here make sure that you prioritize your interest and invest in yourself through that.
I think it also partly goes back to the people.
Like multiple times, we talked about other open source contributors moving from project to project.
Like I was working at Canonical and when I left Canonical,
a lot of other people that had also been at Canonical working on the OpenStack project.
And I thought, that's interesting. What's that all about?
And that is how I got involved in OpenStack.
It was just by talking to other people and seeing what they were interested in now and kind of keeping those connections.
So your network in open source can be really, really valuable in staying connected and finding out where the new things are and where you might want to keep working.
Cool.
Okay. I think we have about 13 minutes left.
So I think I'll ask one more question and then leave the last 10 minutes for the audience.
And I'm not going to hold any of you to this.
I think earlier when I started, I felt pretty depressed for large parts of last year.
Because I wasn't sure if this shift is unique or we're just dealing with another pendulum swing.
So open source careers, in general, what's your outlook?
I mean, to be honest, I think I'm a little bit more optimistic now than I was like middle of last year.
Middle of last year just seemed daunting.
And I just devastating to see a lot of my friends get laid off.
But what are your thoughts on where things are headed?
Or are we dealing with more of the same?
Okay.
I can go first.
So as I work for an open source foundation that is a nonprofit organization,
and I work with a lot of communities, I do see the effect still of where the economy is right now.
However, at the same time, even just in the past two days in the co-located events,
people are throwing out numbers.
Like if we didn't have open source, then it would be like 4. something billion dollars to rebuild what we lost.
And the trillions of dollars of demand that is driven by open source software.
So those kind of numbers show that open source will not go away.
So even if the economy is restructuring itself, companies will restructure themselves too.
And I don't think that anyone really has a choice of not using open source software anymore.
The software also needs to be maintained because otherwise you're not able to use that.
Security is a high priority item in any single conversation that I've been participating in in the past few months.
And maybe it's getting up to years now.
So there's a lot to do in open source.
It is also a model that is very sustainable if it's done right in terms of investment.
So I think we will bounce back overall.
And I think that the job market will have a lot of opportunities that are more directly focused on open source.
And even, I think Alison mentioned that there isn't really a job that has nothing to do with open source anymore.
It's just maybe isn't called out directly.
But I'm optimistic.
Yeah, I'm also optimistic.
I do think that the pendulum has swung too far in the cutting of jobs.
And in particular, I think some of the open source groups have been particularly bad hit.
But I think it's not going to take companies long to realize that somebody has to do that work on the projects that they depend on.
And so, you know, I work a lot with CNCF projects.
Most of them are understaffed and they don't have enough resources to maintain the software over the long term.
And I think that if they don't get more contributors coming back to those projects, because companies have pulled people off of some of those projects.
And so many companies, their whole product line relies on a lot of these products.
So I think they're going to quickly realize that their new features, their bug fixes, their things they're going to need in the software,
that they're going to have to resource some of that.
But the other trend that I find particularly promising as well is some of the alternative funding sources.
So you look at groups like the sovereign tech fund out of Germany who are funding core infrastructure projects.
You look at things like GitHub sponsors.
You look at a lot of these other groups that have started funding individual projects, individual developers.
And so I think that's also an interesting trend from a career and a job standpoint for open source.
I don't know.
From personal experience, I was laid off last year and I haven't looked too hard because I was having fun working full time on my volunteer open source projects.
But I did see in the new year, towards the end of the year, it was a lot of, oh, this year it's totally blocked off.
And in the beginning of the new year, it was like, we're hiring, we're hiring, we're hiring, we have a lot of spaces to fill.
So if you think it's been a difficult year last year, look again because things are changing now.
Cool. So I think cautiously optimistic is the phrase I like to borrow from the economists.
So I think we can open up to audience questions.
I don't know if we have a microphone for the audience or I can just bring one.
Thanks. So I have a question for Ildiko.
You mentioned earlier that when you are at events like this, you have to take advantage of getting to know people and to interact.
So I'm also introvert. How do you get past the barrier of talking to strangers at an event like this?
Not an easy question I know, but.
Excellent question.
I can only share my personal experience.
To me, if I'm passionate about something that will push me through the first few seconds of awful experience,
I can only share my personal experience.
I can only share my personal experience.
If I'm passionate about something that will push me through the first few seconds of awful experience.
The other thing is that what I found is I have days when I just wake up and I'm feeling more social.
And there are days when I can do whatever I want.
I could write a script for myself before I walk up to a person who I don't know yet.
And I would still be totally awkward.
And I learned to say that it's okay.
I have days like this and it is okay.
I also started to kind of be a bit more open about this sometimes just telling the person, you know, I'm socially awkward sometimes.
I'm not ashamed about it.
So like I'm not afraid of putting it out on the table.
And many times the other person can relate that, yeah, well, it's not easy for me either.
And it's just so many examples I have where I said something like this and all of the sudden,
that was like the icebreaker and the other person is also like, oh yeah, it is hard for me too.
And then we have something to talk about.
So it is hard.
I know that it will drain me like after a conference like this.
I need a few days to recover.
My mother also knows that she should not call me like two, three days for two, three days because I will not be a pleasant experience on the phone necessarily.
But yeah, you learn how the social interaction affects you and then you will also learn how to navigate yourself.
So I can only encourage people to get through the first few awkward experiences and then build on what you learned about yourself.
Yeah, I mean, just to build on that, like talking to strangers is hard, right?
And I share some of Ildigo's like I tend to be a little socially awkward.
But what helps me is to talk to people in more social situations.
So you know, you're in line for a coffee or you're at one of the after parties or something where it's a little bit more social.
And I just sort of have ways of coping with it.
Like my question for people is always, you know, are you enjoying the conference?
Or you know, and building on that like, oh, it was the favorite thing you saw today or what are you looking forward to tomorrow?
So you're talking about the conference and you're also, you know, even if this person isn't all that interesting to you or working on the kind of the same things,
maybe you learn something about what they found at the conference and what looks interesting to them.
And it can be a good icebreaker.
And you know, and then sometimes, you know, if you're standing in a group of people and you know, somebody else will chime in and then pretty soon you've got a conversation.
But that's how I start. That's my coping strategy for awkward conversations with strangers.
I'm also an extreme introvert.
For me, it's about understanding that it's difficult for them too.
So if I'm focused on trying to make them comfortable, I'm not thinking about how uncomfortable I am.
And also just being super curious.
Like, ooh, what do you do? What are you interested in?
And like, I get so focused on whatever project they're involved in that, again, I just completely forget about my own awkwardness.
But planning time off, like even in the middle of the conference, planning like half a day off, like, oh, I don't have a whole lot of talks I want to see right now.
I'm just going to go back to the hotel.
And it really helps because you recharge that introvert battery and then you're ready to deal with people again.
I just want to say like plus thousand to that one because I think it took me years to be comfortable with saying I don't really need to talk to anyone in the next two hours.
Like on the sessions, I don't have a target topic where I need to network with people.
So I just, I leave, I find a nice coffee shop somewhere outside of the convention center getting some fresh air and just saying that that's okay.
Also like once you get into the environment and you start to know more people, you don't have to go to every single social event after the conference because there's usually happy hours every evening.
You don't have to go to all of them.
Once you have a base network, then you can pick which one you want to go and the rest don't sweat on it.
Because at the very beginning, I was like, my company's, company's sending me like overseas.
It's a very expensive trip. I'm missing a week of work.
Like the day job kind of work.
And I felt obligated to go to every session, talk to people, go to every social event.
And like if I stepped outside of the convention center during the conference day, then I felt guilty.
So letting that go, yeah, let it go.
It's very important for you to take care of yourself first.
I mean, in addition to social awkwardness that I also deal with, I mean, it's just like crowded conferences like this.
It's challenging to find time to talk to people because they're all busy, especially with speakers.
And I've been on both sides of this.
It's completely okay to say, could I message you on LinkedIn and have a call with them like a week later.
And I actually did that with one of the speakers last year.
This is one of the, like it was in the K building, one of the larger sessions.
And he was just inundated with a lot of people.
And I just said, hey, can I, can I connect you with you on LinkedIn?
And then you're going to be in a more relaxed environment on Zoom.
You just have a conversation about his talk or his background.
So there are, you know, you don't, don't force yourself to just have all the conversations in two days.
It's just very difficult logistically.
So any other questions?
Oh, go ahead.
Yeah.
So my question is, have you experienced any sort of a significant difference in terms of revenue
working on a heavily open source type of project or job versus a, suppose a normal one, if there's such a thing.
Thank you.
The only thing I can say about like salaries and things, in my experience,
that's more tied to geographic locations rather than, and well, the, the job role itself.
Like if you're at a hyperscaler and I don't know VP position,
then I assume you will not have money problems for the rest of your life.
But, but at the same time, I, I really, my experience is I moved geographic locations and that affected my salary more than anything else.
I have not noticed a difference.
And to the, I have not to the degree that when I was putting my son through college and I very much focused on salary, which I don't anymore.
But I was like 1% working on fully open source.
Like I was in the 1%.
Like fully open source, like nothing, like no proprietary software.
So it's not, it does have a lot to do with the company.
Different companies have different salary bands.
So you're more likely to get more if you work at a big company and then a small startup startups tend to be a bit more weighted towards like stock options.
So it just happens.
But yeah, there isn't, there isn't really a difference whether it's open source or not.
Yeah.
And then I mean also comparing like, because I just asked this question because I worked at a foundation working at nonprofit versus like a for profit organizations.
When they need to hire people, they need to be competitive.
Like, I mean, if you're a nonprofit, you can offer like stock options.
That's not viable, but they have to find other ways to make it appealing to attract good people.
Right.
So you can't be at a complete disadvantage like salary wise as an example.
If that's, if, you know, that's, you know, that's my experience.
Other questions.
Any nine.
All right.
Cool.
Well, just final thing I want to say.
So if you want to connect with us, I mentioned LinkedIn.
All of us are on LinkedIn and also on Twitter.
If you want to continue the conversation, feel free and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Thank you.
Thank you.