You all might be hearing a lot about open source nowadays, right? This is because open source is gaining popularity all over the world due to its benefits in providing a wide network of people in the world of tech, opening a wide range of opportunities for everyone who admires a collaborative spirit and loves to work globally. For people who don't know much about open source, in simple words, open source means software that can be used by anyone for free and whose source code is available publicly for modification. The benefits of contributing to open-source projects are countless. Let's understand how you can become a contributor and accelerate your career by attracting great opportunities.

👉What does the first contribution look like?

You can find many open-source projects on websites like Google Summer Of Code and many more. If you are a working professional you can find projects in your organization as well. Initially, work on projects that use the same tech stacks that you are passionate about then learn about new technologies. This will keep you hooked on the project despite its complexity. As a beginner, jumping into repositories of a big project could be overwhelming. Don't quit early, instead give yourself some time.

Once you have found a project, it's time to make some contributions. Your first contribution can be a non-code contribution. Open-source projects are not always about modifying lines of code, there are many other tasks to be taken care of like deleting an unwanted file, fixing typos, and improving the documentation/readme file so that the project becomes self-explanatory and other developers can have a good experience while working on the project. You can add value to a project in tons of ways.

👉How to get involved in a project?

Before making any contribution, it's recommended to go through the documentation guidelines carefully to have a decent level of understanding as to what is the motivation behind building this project and know about all the restrictions. This will prevent you from making mistakes and smoothen your journey.

You can join communities and ask members for help in case you get stuck or have difficulty understanding code. Also, help members if they need it. Focus on collaboration, building together and learning together.

Be aware of fake projects, only invest your time and energy in projects that have more forks and stars.

👉How to grow as a contributor?

When it comes to growth, consistency always comes into the picture. Keep contributing at regular intervals of time. The more you contribute to a project, the better you familiarize yourself with it. While contributing consistently, you get more ideas on other ways of contributing.

👉Benefits of Contributing to Open Source

Amazing Job Offers: When you contribute to a project, you get to work and network with amazing people all over the globe. If you mention the projects to which you have contributed and added value, you have a high chance of getting remote job offers.

Earn as a Freelancer💵: You can reach out to companies and help in improving and maintaining their projects. Also, open source gives you enough recognition which helps in getting clients to work with you and have a side income.

Learn new tech stacks: While contributing to a project, you come across many new technologies that you have never heard of. You start exploring these technologies and learning more about them. In this process, you gain additional skills in working on a new tech stack.

Better Code: Generally, while dealing with large codebases programmers can improve their ability to read code and modify it to make it better. It enhances problem-solving skills as well.

Benefits for communities: Individual contributions can provide advantages to the community as a whole. A lot of time is saved as the tasks are divided and assigned to different people.

Benefits to non-programmers: If you are interested in doing design-related tasks, you will always have something to contribute and make interfaces of projects appealing by using your design skills. Let's take an example of a UI/UX designer: A person having expertise in this field can work on user interface and hence improve user experience.

Thank you for reading this blog till the end. I highly appreciate you for investing your precious time.

This blog post is inspired by Kunal Kushwaha's youtube video on open source and has a summary of all the tips and advice shared by experienced open-source contributors.