My journey into Outreachy
Outreachy is an initiative that provides internships for women (both cis and trans), trans men, and genderqueer people in the technology field to work in FOOS (Free and Open Source Software) projects. The internships are remote and open to anyone in the world.
My journey to getting accepted in Outreachy began a year ago when I met one of the program’s alumni. We were both working as teachers at Reprograma, which is a women’s initiative to decrease the gender gap in the tech industry, by offering a free-of-charge bootcamp-style course. She had an Outreachy experience two years before, working at a Mozilla’s team. She is very enthusiastic about the program, and have been encouraging us all to apply.
At that time, I thought the idea of contributing to Open Source incredible. I knew it existed, because of the events I attended almost 10 years ago, but I never thought I could do it. I felt limited in my field back then, as a designer, although there are many ways we could contribute in visually criative ways. But it was only in 2018, when I felt more confident with web development, that I decided to give it a try and started contributing to one of the Mozilla projects.
The first round of attempts was hard. As a big and well-structured company, Mozilla has its workflow. You have to use Bugzilla, Mercurial, Phabricator, in order to contribute to Firefox, for example. Getting used to it was nerve-wracking and sometimes frustrating. I was afraid of asking in public channels, making stupid questions or pushing errors/bugs.
That experience, although stressful, was very useful for me. I have learned their tools of preference (maybe now I prefer to use Mercurial?) and I started using their public channels. People are helpful, friendly and very very patient!
For the next two rounds, I felt more comfortable with the process, both Outreachy’s, and Mozilla’s.
It felt, however, like a race. There were dozens of candidates for one spot. Although Outreachy says that one contribution is enough, people tend to push multiple ones, to raise their chances to get accepted. The result of that is an exhausting month. I had subscribed to all Bugzilla’s channels to get notified of new bugs, so I could have better chances to take them, but it also takes a lot of time to work on a bug on a totally new codebase. I could not rest, because I felt I was losing time and left behind by somebody else.
For that reason, I thought about giving up, after not getting approved. My life had changed, I had bills to pay, had to work on my business and so on. However, a very special person changed my mind and encourage me to keep trying. If I would give just one piece of advice for applicants would be to be surrounded by people who empower and support you.
So I decided to go on. In the last round I took part on, Outreachy changed its application process — there was a clear timeline for each step, which helped candidates (and probably organizers) to coordinate with their daily lives. I have registered the relevant dates in my calendar —they are extremely punctual, so I knew they would not send information any sooner or later than the determined date and time.
Once the projects were on, I looked on all Mozilla’s project and saw the Treeherder’s Accessibility project. This was the only project I chose to work on. I believed it was a great fit for my skills — it was a React project, which required some experience in UX. Moreover, I had some experiences with a11y web tools, because of some personal contacts.
This last time, my experience in the Outreachy process was very different. I did not feel nervous and stressed out, and with their schedule changes, I could organize my life better. Furthermore, my mentors designed an application process that required two to three contributions, in two linear steps. That resulted in giving me peace of mind because I knew I had the same chances as the other candidates.
I have sent both my mentors an email introducing myself and joined the Treeherder’s IRC channel. The feeling of insecurity was the same I have felt the rounds before, but I was more comfortable with it. Maybe this feeling will never go away, but I need to learn how to manage it.
It was a pleasant experience overall. I did felt anxious on the day the accepted interns were announced and I took some time to believe my name was there. I was overwhelmed and grateful. I felt all of the work I have done has paid off.
Some advice I have for Outreachy applicants:
- Don’t give up. Every round you will learn something new that will make you a better fit for Outreachy and make you a better professional;
- Check the list of projects of the previous round and research about the company or project. Get involved before the application process, to get to know specific workflow and tools;
- Talk to people, don’t be afraid. It can be intimating at first, but it is something that every Open Source initiative advise to do and the most valuable tip;
- Keep a positive attitude. You want to make this a great experience for yourself and for the community in general.
It has been a great journey so far and I recommend it to everyone who wants to enhance her technical, social and soft skills.
