My Experience as a Notable Contributor at GitLab
Introduction
In the previous article, I showed you how GitLab can help your professional growth. Among many reasons, I mentioned that for me, the main one is the opportunity to contribute to one of the most widely used platforms in the software development world. For this reason, in this article, I’ll tell you about my experience as a contributor at GitLab and how I became a Notable Contributor in GitLab 18.5.
The Beginning
I remember when I was looking for large companies that used Golang in their stack and also had a remote culture. To my surprise, one of these companies was GitLab. When I saw that I could contribute to this great platform, I didn’t hesitate to request contributor access. One of the advantages of contributor access is that you get a free license for GitLab Duo, which offers benefits beyond software development, such as securing the applications you build.
Evolution as a Contributor
Once my contributor access was accepted, the first thing I did was look for GitLab repositories that use Golang. The first one I found was the CLI, and I decided to start there. I first installed it in my local environment to try it out (I’m a fan of CLIs) and then looked for some simple issues to start contributing. Here you can see the first contributions I made to this project. They were quite simple, mainly related to the repo’s documentation, but they helped me get familiar with GitLab’s workflow and culture.
After these initial contributions, I found client-go, the official Go client for the GitLab API. In this project, I started by contributing some documentation improvements and later began developing new integrations with the GitLab API. The complexity of the contributions gradually increased, and with it, my confidence as a contributor. These are my contributions to this project. At the same time, I found the terraform-provider, which has been my biggest learning experience at GitLab so far. I recommend any software engineer who wants to learn about Infrastructure as Code and Terraform to contribute to this project. I had used Terraform before, but there’s a considerable difference between using it and understanding how a Terraform provider is developed. Thanks to this project, I’ve learned that difference. Here are my contributions to this repository, ranging from refactoring and improving parameter validations to fixing bugs.
Nomination as a Notable Contributor
I was enjoying the process of contributing to these projects when, suddenly, after some time, I received a nomination as a Notable Contributor from Arianna Haradon, who does an excellent job with GitLab contributors. In fact, she was the one who handled my onboarding as a contributor. Honestly, even though it was just a nomination, I didn’t expect it, and it was a very pleasant surprise for me.
In each release, GitLab recognizes contributors who have had a significant impact and awards them the title of “Notable Contributor” (formerly MVP). Notable contributors receive special recognition in the release notes, get points for the rewards store, and also get a special badge on their GitLab profile.
What I Never Imagined 🏆
If the nomination was a surprise for me, you can’t imagine how great I felt when I was finally selected as the Notable Contributor for version 18.5.
Starting my journey as a contributor at GitLab has reminded me how good it feels to do something you genuinely love without expecting anything in return. Here are the release notes for version 18.5 (published on October 21th), where they mention this version’s notable contributor at the beginningโthat’s me! 😂
If you’re a software engineer who truly loves this profession, or if you don’t have much experience but want to contribute to one of the most widely used platforms in the software development world, I recommend you join the GitLab contributors community. It doesn’t matter if you’re a junior or a senior; there’s always something you can contribute and learn in the process.
Until Next Time
If you are interested in this type of article and want to know more about my experience as a contributor at GitLab, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter using the form at the end of the article. I will soon publish more articles about GitLab, specifically about my experience in the Hackathon and the prizes I’ve won from the rewards store.