External Contribution: Insights from a Flexible Mindset

Why I Contribute to Our Internal Engineering Conference

I’ve had the pleasure of presenting at every edition of the Software Engineering Community Conference. It's a large step outside of my comfort zone, but I enjoy knowledge sharing and the overall special atmosphere of the conference. I challenge myself to present every year and I've never regretted it. The preparation process alone is a huge learning experience; I get to rethink the projects I have been working on and gain clarity for myself.

My talks have evolved over time. The first one was based on my Master's thesis, so the prep was easy. The second time, my motivation was to involve a teammate and present our work together. My most recent talk was on productivity, which was not technical, in contrast to my previous contributions. This topic was motivated by a great experience I had working with other teams. I was glad to share it and hoped to inspire more external contributions across the teams.

What an "External Contributor" Is

An external contributor is someone who ships code beyond the boundaries of their team. It’s a person who has not previously worked with the system or the team they are contributing to. During development, an external contributor joins new people to work on new services, aiming to build new features.

How to Get Up to Speed & Make an Impact

When I join a new team, preparation is key for me to get up to speed quickly. I enjoy reading the code and digging into documentation on my own before talking to anyone. This helps me create a visual representation of how the system works and allows me to adjust my understanding later on.

To make an impact and deliver changes, I try to start small, with unblocked tickets and small changes. This approach gives me insight into the team’s work ways before I make bigger changes. It's also a fast way to build trust because the team sees that even with small improvements, I have assured the quality.

Using Your External Perspective as an Asset

Bringing an external perspective means sharing knowledge on technology your team utilizes more than the other team, or challenging the architecture or process that is taken for granted. I’ve noticed awkward patterns and shared suggestions. I certainly asked "silly questions," and sometimes the answer was that it was a good question. I've found that sometimes, not knowing better is the best position to be in.

Growing a Flexible Mindset

Working on these different projects has helped me grow my systems thinking and apply knowledge across different domains. I believe that learning fast is a great skill that needs continuous training. Participating in time-bound projects in a new environment is a great way to train to learn fast.

I've also gained "confidence in ambiguity". The worst problem we faced was running out of work because some tasks were blocked for various reasons. These situations create ambiguity, especially if the initial design is being re-negotiated and I've reorganized my schedule to work with the team. But I've learned to be flexible and fall back on my home team’s tasks or help another team when needed. Surprisingly, there are always things to do if you are confident enough to make choices.

How Being an External Contributor Puts Our Founding Mindset (OFM) Into Action

This approach to working directly applies to our OFMs.