The fellowship starts 29th of Jan *2024 * of course :)
On Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 10:53 AM Jarek Potiuk <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Airflow Community, > > TL;DR; I am looking for a (volunteer) co-mentor to join me in > mentoring 2 Fellows from Major League Hacking Spring 2024. From the > past experiences, I know it's a very important thing to have two > co-mentors, because that allows them to share the (small) extra load > and be responsive regardless of temporary personal issues and the load > of a single mentor. > > If you are potentially interested - read on for more details. > > # What am I asking for ? > > If you would like to join me in being a co-mentor - feel free to reach > out to me personally. We have time till 10th of January to fill a form > that will help MLH to choose and assign the right Fellows, so ideally > finding a co-mentor till the end of next week would be perfect. > > The MLH Spring 2024 Fellowship starts 29th of Jan 2023 and will last > ~ 12 weeks (so ends ~ end of April) . > > I also have quite some experience in mentoring - so I am happy to > mentor new mentors who would like to try but do not know what they are > signing up for :). Also reach out on slack if you are not sure, Happy > to answer any questions. > > # What do you get from it as mentor? > > Mostly fame and glory (but also abilitiy to lead advancement of > something you want to do in Airflow by having someone who will work on > it). It's also an opportunity to help others to grow and - what I find > most important is to learn from the less experienced, new community > members. I've learned a lot from all past mentees. The mentor <-> > mentee relationship works both ways. It's an opportunity also to > exercise your empathy but sometimes also assertiveness, and sometimes > even assertivness to be able to tell someone they are probably not > well fit for the project after trying to get things working long > enough. It can sometimes involve hard conversations but if you like > opennes and transparency - even if it is hard sometimes, this is the > right thing to do. And when things work out, it gets very rewarding > seeing the mentees are growing (see success stories below). > > # Some more context and information: > > MLH asked us to participate in Fall 2023 but I personally had no > capacity to commit to it - however I missed mentoring and internship > long enough (After two successful Outreachy internships) that I > reserved some of my time to mentor the fellows from MLH this year. > > We have not worked with MLH yet but it seems they know what they are > doing, they offer quite a bit of help and "mentoring the mentors" and > they have sponsors who are happy to sponsor two fellows to do an > internship for Airflow. Also the fellows are going to be already > pretty experienced developers who know Python and should be capable of > implementing tasks mostly on their own following our regular > contribution process. > > # What mentoring is about? > > - finding the right-sized (small-ish) projects for the interns to > complete and few lead-up issues that will let them familiarise with > the area > - setting up the mentees for success - i.e. mentor them and help them > to contribute in the "usual" way > - helping the mentees to succeed - i.e. guiding them in the right > direction, help them when they struggle - both when it comes to > Airflow internals as well (and that might be more important) with > communication/contribution issues > - the Spring Fellowship for > > # Projects for Airflow > > I have not yet proposed the topics - the topics depend on the > co-mentor as we both should be able to help the mentees in their work > and guide them if they need help. This is also an opportunity to > accomplish something that you want to get in Airflow but have no time > to complete it yourself/focus mainly on something else. And we have an > opportunity to bring in aspiring people who might bring a lot of value > long-term for the community. > > # Examples and success stories from the past > > There are past examples of successful projects we've done with such > internships. From my experience it's a very rewarding (but also > mentally quite a bit demanding from mentor) experience and we've had > quite a few successes in the past with our mentees - including several > of them being able to advance their careers in IT - at least partially > thanks to their internship with Airflow. We've had notably Kamil > Breguła, Kaxil, Elad as mentors and a number of others who helped our > interns to succeed. > > * Airflow REST API -> was done as the first Outreachy Internship with > Ephraim being one of the interns (and now PMC, Committer, full-time > employed in Open Source/Airflow) > > * Improving Developer/Contributor Documentation - with Google Season > of Docs where Elena - Technical Writer - helped us to restructure and > improve the docs for contributors. I keep in touch with Elena from > time to time - she is now leading a team of Tech Writers. > > * Rewriting Breeze in Python - some people might remember that Breeze > has been originally implemented in Bash (:scream:) by me. During the > Outreachy internship with Edith and Bowrna we rewrote Breeze to Python > (and it helped us to make it much easier to maintain and evolve). Both > Bowrna and Edith got jobs related to Open-Source, Bowrna continues to > contribute to Airflow pretty regularly. > > Also - you can find more information about MLH Fellowship here: > https://fellowship.mlh.io/ > > Feel free to reach out to me if you are interested. > > J. >
