The Real Life Story of a Contributor

Drupal is a vast community. Really vast. You might think the apartment building you live in is large but that is peanuts compared to Drupal. It is hard not to feel lost in this vast community unless you know where to start. New contributors don’t know where to start.

In this session, I will use myself as an example and talk about how I actually got introduced to Drupal and started contributing. I will talk about how Drupal changed my life and how contribution gave me my 15 mins of fame. It is not all a bed of roses though and I will also talk about the dark days I went through, and still go through as a contributor.

In essence, I will talk about what I faced when contributing to the Drupal community and how it made me a better developer, and a better person.

• How I found Drupal
• How I began contributing
• How I found out about impostor syndrome and what I did about it
• How I fought burnout throughout my career
• How an introvert like me handled being a part of the community

My hope is that the audience will relate to the points I present here and reflect on their own stories. Everyone has a story to say and everyone should be able to relate to other’s stories. I hope they will also find ways to battle their own demons in dealing with open source contributions in general.