It all started around mid-November. I was looking for an open-source project to contribute to, but I didn’t want to join just anything. I had a few mental “metrics” to decide whether a community was a red flag or a green flag for me. When I found Meshery, almost all of those metrics turned green. I was looking for an inclusive community, having world-class engineers, who are active, have a strong culture and they are building some cool stuff having a large scale of impact.
Meshery checked every single box for me. The community was engaging, very active, with some of the best engineers here. I remember when I joined their Slack workspace if I asked something, someone would reply almost instantly. I got even more excited by the enthusiasm and energy of each community member welcoming me in the newcomers channel.
Choosing to contribute here has genuinely been one of the best decisions of my life.
Finding My Area of Impact
When I joined, I wanted to learn things. So I started attending calls regularly. Slowly and gradually, I started contributing too, then delivering updates in the community calls, and consequently started climbing the contributor ladder. I still remember my first call with my mentor Lee Calcote and my friend Suhani. We were working on updating action versions in workflows. Later, we got into CI linting, and Lee called us to discuss it.
That’s when I was introduced to pre-commit hooks using Husky. He suggested adding a pre-commit hook to Meshery so the code would lint automatically before commits.
After some consistent contributions and regular participation in calls, Suhani and I both received a two-week Core Team trial consideration. There was some miscommunication from my side initially, so I wasn’t being called for it at first. When I asked Lee how I could best position my candidacy.
He said:
Pick one area and burrow in like a tick inside of a water buffalo’s ear.
Lee Calcote
Layer5 Founder
In simple words: Identify the single thing that you are the absolute best at, technical or non-technical, and create undeniable value there. It could be graphic design, project management, reviewing PRs, following up on action items, removing roadblocks, anything.
That advice gave me direction.
Showing Up Before Being Asked
I noticed that a few people were replying to newcomers in the Slack channel, helping resolve queries of others, and encouraging people. I thought I would do that too. I started replying to newcomers welcoming them, I also asked if I could help around hosting newcomer’s meet as well.
Around that time, Ritesh was hosting the newcomers ’ meeting, so I reached out to him. And some time later I started by co-hosting the newcomers’ meeting with Yash Sharma.
Key Takeaway
- Think Like You Own the Community: Before anyone asked me to, I started doing it, I showed up as if it’s my own community. That’s a mindset and behaviour I believe sets you apart from others and you grow very fast.
If you have this mindset automatically these questions would come through your mind:
- How could I improve this project?
- How could I create more value?
- How could I reduce friction for others?
- Become a Mentor and a Mentee at the same time: Even if you don’t know the answer to a question, you can still act like a leader as it’s a behaviour not a title. You can point someone to documentation or you can tag the right person that could help the person better. Reviewing PRs is another great way to learn and help. The idea is you encourage people, You call them to action, you learn with them along the way, that is something that I call Being a Mentor and a Mentee at the same time.
Coming back to my journey, after co-hosting a few calls, Yash asked if I could host the second half from next week while he handled the first half. I was genuinely excited. Immediately after that call, he told me I did a great job, gave me some feedback, and handed over the full hosting to the meeting.
- Continuing the cycle: Here’s how I see it, first, you come in and learn how to do something well. Once you’ve mastered it, you share that knowledge and pass it on to others. Then you move on to a new challenge, but you stay involved as a mentor, keeping a watchful eye and stepping in whenever guidance or support is needed.
You train others to do the same, and they go on to teach more people. The cycle continues. I also believe it’s a responsibility to share what I have learned. At the beginning of my journey, someone helped me climb the contributor ladder when I needed it. Now it’s my turn to do the same for someone else, and to teach them to carry that mindset forward.
That’s how communities truly scale. That’s how leadership grows organically. Staying consistent with this mindset and behavior ultimately led me to becoming a Community Manager.
Completing the Internship Before It Officially Began
One day on a call, Lee introduced a migration project, moving docs.meshery.io from Jekyll to Hugo.I started digging into how the system was structured and understanding Jekyll, static site generators, etc.
Lee kept saying: “If someone knows Jekyll and Hugo inside out, this is a one-day job.” He pushed me to complete it and set clear deadlines. It took me a little longer than expected, and even now it’s around 95% complete. But in terms of the learning curve, I learned an incredible amount by practically applying everything along the way.
I can confidently say that I almost completed my LFX internship project even before the internship officially began. That’s a personal achievement for me.
Build Systems That Are Resilient, Not Fragile
Here’s a design lesson I learned from the migration. In Jekyll, each page had a manually defined permalink. It sounds good because URLs never change. But in reality, although it may sound counterintuitive, it makes the system fragile. Every time if we restructure content, we have to manually update those permalinks. In Hugo, URLs are derived automatically from the folder structure. That makes the system more resilient and relative instead of absolute and brittle.
Lee explained this concept to me with an analogy of how engineers design tall buildings in earthquake-prone regions. They don’t make them rigid and stiff. They make them slightly flexible so they can absorb shocks. Resilience beats rigidity.
What is the common trait shared by all the people who have succeeded in this community and later became great examples for others to follow?
The people who have truly succeeded in this community shared two defining qualities: they were helpful and they were consistent. They genuinely wanted to create value, they stayed curious, and showed up with a mindset of learning rather than just getting an internship. At the same time, they committed to steady effort, showing up daily, attending meetings, taking ownership, and staying engaged even through the hardest moments. Over time, their consistency compounded setting them apart and turning them into strong examples for others to follow.
I also want to acknowledge a piece of advice from my mentor:
Just start contributing and get the experience you want, don’t let an internship get in your way.
Lee Calcote
Layer5 Founder
Acknowledgements
I’m extremely grateful to Lee and everyone in this community. Lee is someone who invests heavily in his mentees. He pushes you, challenges you, and expects more from you, always with the intention of helping you grow and he is one of the people who will go to lengths to help you succeed, if you are ready to give your all.
Conclusion
If there’s a piece of advice I’d offer to anyone reading this, it would be simple: be helpful, be consistent, and take ownership of your work. Strive to be both a mentee and a mentor, and choose at least one area to dive deeply into and truly understand.
Open source is not just about code, it’s about people, collaboration, and shared learning. Community always comes before code. I hope I was able to share insights from my journey that might support you and perhaps even inspire you to contribute to open source. If you’d like to connect, collaborate, or simply chat about open source or LFX, feel free to reach out to me on GitHub or LinkedIn.
Resources
- Diátaxis Framework - A systematic approach to technical documentation authoring.
- Migration Plan - For migrating docs.meshery.io to Hugo
