At Electe, we challenged our development team to actively contribute to 10 diverse projects in just 6 months. This experience transformed our technical capabilities, expanded our network, and opened unexpected opportunities for collaboration. Here's exactly what we discovered.

Why We Started

Six months ago, we realized our organization was consuming open source tools daily but giving little back to the community. Our development team was also working primarily within established technical domains—using the same technologies and solving similar problems repeatedly.

Projects We Impacted 

1. **DataValidator** - Data validation framework
   * Fixed critical bugs in validation components
   * Mastered advanced data integrity practices

  javascript
   // Before our contribution
   const validator = new DataValidator({
     strictMode: true
   });

   // After our improvement - added support for custom validation rules
   const validator = new DataValidator({
     strictMode: true,
     customRules: {
       isValidProductCode: (value) => /^[A-Z]{2}-\d{4}$/.test(value),
       hasValidPrice: (value) => value > 0 && value < 1000000
     },
     errorMessages: {
       isValidProductCode: 'Product code must be in format XX-0000',
       hasValidPrice: 'Price must be between 0 and 1,000,000'
     }
   });
  1. APIMonitor - API monitoring solution
    • Added support for new visualization types
    • Gained expertise in real-time monitoring and alerting 
python
   # Our contribution to APIMonitor: Performance alert thresholds

   # Configuration with our new adaptive thresholds
   monitoring_config = {
       "endpoint": "https://api.example.com/users",
       "method": "GET",
       "check_interval": 60,  # seconds
       "alerts": {
           "response_time": {
               "adaptive_threshold": True,
               "baseline_period": "7d",
               "sensitivity": "medium",
               "alert_on_deviation_percent": 30,
               "min_threshold_ms": 200,
               "max_threshold_ms": 2000
           },
           "error_rate": {
               "threshold_percent": 5,
               "window_size": "15m"
           }
       },
       "notification_channels": ["slack", "pagerduty", "email"]
   }
  1. DeploymentAutomator - Multi-cloud deployment tool
    • Implemented new features and enhanced documentation
    • Developed skills in creating robust deployment pipelines 
yaml
   # Our contribution: Multi-cloud deployment configuration

   deployments:
     production:
       strategy: blue-green
       providers:
         - type: aws
           region: us-west-2
           resources:
             - service: ecs
               cluster: production-cluster
               task-definition: app-service
               desired-count: 3
               auto-scaling:
                 min: 3
                 max: 10
                 metrics:
                   - type: cpu
                     target: 75
         - type: gcp
           region: us-central1
           resources:
             - service: cloud-run
               image: ${CI_REGISTRY}/app-service:${CI_COMMIT_SHA}
               min-instances: 2
               max-instances: 8
       health-checks:
         - path: /api/health
           port: 8080
           success-threshold: 3
           timeout: 5s
       rollback:
         automatic: true
         on-criteria:
           - error-rate > 5%
           - p95-latency > 500ms

...and seven other projects spanning from databases to machine learning.

Key Learnings 

java
// Before: Uncovered edge case in DataValidator
public boolean validate(DataObject data) {
    // Basic validation only
    return data != null && data.getId() > 0;
}

// After: Our improved robust validation
public ValidationResult validate(DataObject data) {
    ValidationResult result = new ValidationResult();

    if (data == null) {
        result.addError("data", "Data object cannot be null");
        return result;
    }

    // ID validation with detailed errors
    if (data.getId() <= 0) {
        result.addError("id", "ID must be positive");
    }

    // Additional validation for nested objects
    if (data.getMetadata() != null) {
        validateMetadata(data.getMetadata(), result);
    }

    // Transaction validation 
    if (data.hasTransactions()) {
        validateTransactions(data.getTransactions(), result);
    }

    return result;
}

Technical Growth

  • Rigorous code review processes: Each project enforced different standards
  • Comprehensive testing strategies: We adopted testing patterns we hadn't encountered before
  • Diverse architectural approaches: Seeing how different teams structure complex projects was invaluable
  • Performance optimization techniques: We acquired specialized optimization skills across different contexts

Organizational Benefits

  • Improved communication: Our team learned to explain technical decisions clearly and concisely
  • Enhanced collaboration: Some contributions required weeks of reviews and iterations
  • Continuous improvement: We embraced critical feedback as a growth opportunity
  • Strategic networking: We built relationships with talented developers worldwide

Business Impact

This initiative dramatically accelerated our organization's technical capabilities:

  • Our engineering team has become more versatile across multiple domains
  • Our company GitHub profile now showcases our expanded skill set
  • We've received partnership inquiries and collaboration opportunities
  • Our confidence in tackling complex problems has increased exponentially

How Your Company Can Start Its Own Open Source Journey

  1. Target low-hanging fruit: Look for issues labeled "good first issue" or "beginner friendly"
  2. Study contributor guidelines: Each project has specific requirements
  3. Observe before diving in: Study existing PRs and how they're handled
  4. Ask direct questions: Most communities welcome thoughtful inquiries
  5. Document your progress: Track organizational learnings for future reference

How Our Contributions Have Been Integrated 

# Deployment statistics after our improvements
$ deployment-automator stats --last-30-days

Deployment Summary (Last 30 Days):
┌──────────────────┬───────┬──────────┬──────────────┬────────────┐
│ Environment      │ Count │ Avg Time │ Success Rate │ Rollbacks  │
├──────────────────┼───────┼──────────┼──────────────┼────────────┤
│ Development      │    87 │   2m 12s │        100% │          0 │
│ Staging          │    42 │   3m 47s │         98% │          1 │
│ Production       │    16 │   5m 33s │        100% │          0 │
└──────────────────┴───────┴──────────┴──────────────┴────────────┘

# Before our contributions, production deployments averaged 14m 22s
# with a success rate of 92% and 3 rollbacks per month

$ deployment-automator audit --last-deployment
Deployment verified. All security checks passed.
Code scanning completed: No vulnerabilities detected.
Compliance status: All required policies satisfied.

The Bottom Line

Contributing to open source is the single most effective way we've found to level up our team's skills, build our professional network, and gain recognition in the industry. The time investment has paid off tenfold in opportunities and growth.

What is your organization waiting for? Find a project and make your first contribution today.

Follow Electe's ongoing journey on GitHub.