Open source is the most credible signal a student can produce, and the one most students never attempt because a large repository looks like a cliff. The way in is not heroics. It is contributing to something you already use, in the smallest way that is genuinely useful, and repeating.
Pick a repository you actually use
The retrieval library in your RAG project, the training toolkit in your fine-tuning project, the web framework in both. You already know its rough edges because you have hit them. That knowledge is your contribution.
Read before you write
- The contributing guide and code of conduct.
- Ten recent merged pull requests — what size, what style, what the maintainers ask for.
- The issue tracker, filtered to labels like good first issue or documentation.
First contributions that are welcome
- A documentation fix for something that confused you, with the clearer wording.
- A reproducible bug report with a minimal example — often more valuable than a fix.
- A test for behaviour that is not covered.
- A small fix for an issue a maintainer has labelled as approachable.
How to behave
Comment on an issue before starting so nobody duplicates work. Keep the pull request small and single-purpose. Respond to review within a day and without defensiveness; review is teaching you the codebase. Thank people. Maintainers remember contributors who were easy to work with far more than those who were brilliant.
Turning it into a track record
Three merged contributions to a library you use is a line on your resume that no certificate matches, and a talking point in any interview: you have read production code and had your changes reviewed by its authors. Link the pull requests from your GitHub profile and mention them in your LinkedIn posts — the same visibility that leads to hackathon invitations and mentors.
About Pranjul Rathour
Speaking at a MeetKats event
Taking questions during a session
At VSICS, Kanpur
At an Integral Startup Foundation hackathon
In a packed college auditorium
Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-07.
Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:
- Email: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com
- Invite / talk menu: https://pranjulrathour.scult.in/invite
- Portfolio & blog: https://pranjulrathour.scult.in
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranjul-rathour/
- X: https://x.com/PranjulRathourx
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pranjulrathour.in/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/pranjulrathour.bsky.social
- GitHub: https://github.com/Pranjulrathour
Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to
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