The year 2024 was such a roller coaster for me. In one minute, I felt on top of the world, and the next minute, I was running around aimlessly like a headless chicken. It was a year of victories but also the year I stepped back and paused.
Achievements and Happiness
I will start by highlighting my achievements and the little things that have brought me happiness. These moments have given me all the reasons to keep doing what I do and push through.
Becoming a Maintainer Course with OpenSauced
There are plenty of resources for contributing to open-source projects but not maintaining them. So, when Bekah (@bekahhw) offered me the chance to be on the team creating the Becoming a Maintainer Course, I didn't think twice and said yes. Working and collaborating closely with Bekah and Jessica (@codergirl1991) was one of my most valuable experiences! 💖
You can look at the public archived repository below to see how we collaborated to create this course.
🍕 Becoming a Maintainer with OpenSauced 🍕
Welcome to the Becoming a Maintainer Course with OpenSauced! This course is designed to provide you with an introduction to how to become an open source maintainer and guide you through the process of creating your open source project, working with contributors, and more.
Course Overview
The course is divided into chapters, with each covering a different aspect of being an open source maintainer:
This chapter introduces the role of maintainers in open source, the benefits and the responsibilities of becoming a maintainer, and the challenges they face.
This chapter walks you through the crucial elements necessary for every project to succeed during its initial setup.
In this…
The excitement didn't stop there. OpenSauced already has an Intro to Open Source Course built on docsify. Having both courses in one place would make more sense. I never worked with docsify and had no idea if it would work. But I researched, played around, and successfully put both courses in the same repository and website! 🎉
feat: add "Becoming a Maintainer" course
#174
This PR adds the "Becoming a Maintainer" course with following changes:
- Added a
becoming-a-maintainerfolder in thedocsdirectory. - Moved the course's files from maintainer course repo to the
becoming-a-maintainerfolder. - Fixed links and adjusted wording to accomodate both courses.
- Moved
.nojekyllfile into the root ofdocs. - Changed styling for accessibility purpose as shown in the screenshots. Color palettes are following OpenSauced's brand.
Closes #169 #171
https://github.com/open-sauced/intro/assets/45172775/30bbb77c-a84b-4651-8e74-862cd9df3ef8
- [ ] Tier 1
- [ ] Tier 2
- [ ] Tier 3
- [ ] Tier 4
I can't express how happy and proud I was when we launched it in May 2024! I hope this course can help folks who are or want to be open source maintainers. 😊
Last Cohort of The Collab Lab
Since I finished my cohort in 2021, I have volunteered at The Collab Lab as a Code of Conduct Responder and mentor.
The Collab Lab is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization that helps early-career developers learn the collaboration side of software development. Unfortunately, it closed because of some challenges. The last cohort started in July 2024, when my family and I had planned a long vacation. That meant I couldn't volunteer for the last time, and it broke my heart.
But luck was on my side. When we returned home in August, they still needed a code of conduct responder to handle some teams. I was blessed to get the chance to give back to the community that helped me tremendously for the last time! 🥰
Catching a Pokemon
I've been part of the Virtual Coffee community for almost five years. Virtual Coffee is an international online community of developers at all levels.
After the COVID lockdowns passed, some of us had the opportunity to meet in person at meetups, conferences, or other events. One of our members invented the term "I caught a Pokemon!" when they could meet another member(s) in person.
This year, my family and I went to my hometown, Jakarta, Indonesia, for summer vacation. This was one of my highlights of the year because I haven't been back for 5 years! And I could spend my birthday in my hometown after 11 years of living abroad. Seeing my sister, big family, and friends after so long and speaking entirely in Indonesian after a while boosted my spirit.
Surprisingly, one of my friends I made online (and now becoming one of my dearest friends) happened to be in Jakarta. Yes, I met Victoria (@lo_victoria2666) in person! My first-ever Pokemon caught!🥳
Victoria has been one of my biggest inspirations and motivation in tech, particularly blogging. At this point, I was on the edge of giving up tech, which I will tell you later. Meeting and talking with her over coffee gave me many reasons to stay and push through. I feel very fortunate to know and have her as a good friend! 🥰
First Time Workshops
Public speaking has always been my kryptonite. I've given some talks and been a guest on several podcasts, but I'm still terrified of public speaking. However, with a nudge from the community, I keep trying to leave my comfort zone.
In September, we had the Pretember challenge at Virtual Coffee. For this challenge, Bekah asked me if I wanted to co-run two open-source workshops to prepare our members for Hacktoberfest. One was an Intro to Open Source workshop, and the other was a Becoming an Open Source Maintainer workshop.
At first, I hesitated and needed some time to think. But in a couple of days, I agreed to the offer. Although I felt nervous, I did well. Had I not taken the chance, I would never have done it, and I would never believe I could! 🥰
Challenges
All my achievements didn't come without challenges. This year was an actual roller coaster for me. I'm going to be open and share my true feelings here.
I've been learning coding, blogging, and being involved in tech communities for almost six years. Although I enjoy what I do, I reach the point where I feel exhausted, stagnant, and don't know what else to do, which leads me to want to give up.
I don't have as much energy to learn late at night as I used to, and I can't absorb things as fast as I used to. I started to lose focus and do everything half-heartedly. The tech field is dynamic, and I lose my breath trying to catch up.
The tech job market has been more challenging these past years. Most companies are looking for senior-level and Dutch-speaking developers in the Netherlands, and I don't meet the requirements. I can understand and speak Dutch, but not at a working level, let alone in tech. And obviously, I'm an early career in tech. Receiving rejection letters is not new to me, but I won't lie. It often disappoints me and leaves me feeling defeated.
I did get a handful of interviews through some networks (for which I'm super grateful). However, I mostly fail in technical interviews because my skills "are not there" yet, which makes me believe that my skills will never be there. I would then beat myself up because I let those who referred me to the companies down.
For the last six months, I've been struggling. I know it's not an imposter syndrome anymore. It's more than that. I still love tech and wish to stay in this field, but being a front-end developer is no longer something I want to pursue. I'm too far from what it takes to be a junior developer and just too exhausted to get there. So, I paused and did some deep thinking. From there, I realized some things that motivated me to pivot in 2025.
Final Words
The year 2024 was tough, but I learned so much from it—most importantly, I learned so much more about myself. I'm also blessed and grateful to be part of great communities and have friends who continuously support and motivate me. I can't say thank you enough to all of you for believing in me! 🫶
I have one big goal for next year, which I will discuss in a separate post. Lastly, thank you for all the lessons, year 2024!
This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Retro’ing and Debugging 2024.
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