Episode 113: Jon Gottfried and Mike Swift on the MLH Fellowship program

Guest Jon Gottfried | Mike Swift Panelists Richard Littauer |
Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls Show Notes Hello and welcome to
Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for
the long haul. We have two amazing guests joining us, Jon Gottfried
and Mike Swift, who are the Co-Founders of Major League Hacking
(MLH). Today, we’ll learn about the MLH Fellowship program, the
philosophy behind MLH, which every year, more than 100,000
developers from around the world attend these events to learn new
technical skills by getting hands-on experience. Jon and Mike share
the changes they faced when COVID hit, the future of events, and
what they’re most excited about happening in the next year. Go
ahead and download this episode now to find out much more!
[00:01:35] Jon and Mike share their background stories how they
founded MLH. [00:08:45] We hear the elevator pitch of what MLH is
and the philosophy behind it. [00:13:43] Jon and Mike talk about
what the selection process is in terms of projects that people are
contributing to on the fellowship program. [00:18:13] Richard
brings up a post from Mike McQuaid and wonders how Jon and Mike are
helping the new beginners learn about the necessities of open
source, and how they’re helping the maintainers to not burn out.
[00:25:50] Jon and Mike share how they were feeling when the
pandemic first started and if they had to make any transitions to
get to 2022. [00:31:05] Mike shares his take on future events being
possibly hybrid or not. [00:33:59] Ben wonders if there’s anything
that’s missing from the fellowship or from some of the digital
events. [00:38:06] We learn what Jon and Mike are most excited
about happening in the next six months or year. [00:42:09] Find out
where you can follow Jon, Mike, and MLH online. Quotes [00:07:07]
“It really drew me back in and really made me passionate about the
community side of tech.” [00:09:36] “A lot of developers start to
hone their skills though open source; however, open source is
scary.” [00:11:44] “All told, something like 40,000 people in our
community lost a job or internship during the summer of 2020 due to
COVID.” [00:15:16] “When you’re an early career developer, one of
the most important things you can learn is how to approach an open
source codebase you haven’t seen before, and how to begin
contributing.” [00:18:02] “For people who don’t go to top tier
schools or don’t live in a country that’s highly desirable from a
hiring perspective, that really does set them apart by being able
to point to something they built.” [00:20:35] “Start with
community.” [00:21:43] “Major League Hacking helps foster a culture
of coming back and contributing.” [00:26:37] “We’re not a hackathon
company. Our job is to empower new developers and launch their
careers.” [00:40:31] “We run a digital event every single week,
full year-round, and it’s democratizing access to these types of
opportunities.” Spotlight [00:42:39] Ben’s spotlight is thanks.dev
[00:43:28]** Justin’s **spotlight is fig.io. [00:43:50] Richard’s
spotlight is Uri Goldshtein. [00:44:22] Mike’s spotlight is a
project by Vercel called Next.js. [00:45:36] Jon’s spotlight is a
shout-out to Frédéric Collonval, a maintainer that has been helping
new contributors on jupyterlab-git. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) Jon
Gottfried Twitter (https://twitter.com/jonmarkgo) Jon Gottfried
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmarkgo/) Mike Swift
Twitter (https://twitter.com/swiftalphaone) Mike Swift LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/theycallmeswift/) MLH Fellowship
(https://fellowship.mlh.io/partners) Major League Hacking
(https://mlh.io/) Stop Mentoring First-Time Contributors by Mike
McQuaid
(https://mikemcquaid.com/2019/02/16/stop-mentoring-first-time-contributors/)
thanks.dev (https://thanks.dev/home) Fig (https://fig.io/) Uri
Goldshtein Twitter (https://twitter.com/urigoldshtein)
Next.js-GitHub
(https://github.com/vercel/next.js/tree/canary/examples) Frédéric
Collonval (https://github.com/fcollonval) jupyterlab-git
(https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab-git) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: Jon Gottfried and Mike Swift.