Magento 2 Core Contributions


I have always believed the best way to really learn a framework is to work on the framework itself. So shortly after I joined Space48 in Manchester, I started contributing to the Magento 2 repository — small pull requests here and there.

I have to admit it was easier than I thought, and I genuinely enjoyed collaborating with great developers from all over the world — brilliant people like Sergii Ivashchenko , Oleksandr Lyzun and Shankar Konar , the kind of engineers who make you better just by reviewing your code. You open a PR, someone on the other side of the planet reviews it, you go back and forth, and a few days later a little piece of you is part of a platform thousands of stores run on. It is a great feeling.

Contribution day at Meet Magento UK 2019 A contribution day at Meet Magento UK 2019 — heads down with fellow developers.

From small PRs to maintainer

One thing led to another. After a trip to Las Vegas to attend Magento Imagine, I was invited to become a Magento maintainer of the Adobe Stock Integration project.

Being a maintainer is a different kind of contribution: instead of only opening PRs, you review other people’s work, triage issues, and help shape the direction of a part of the platform. We had regular demo calls to show what the team had been building, with maintainers joining from all over the world.

Sharing the experience

Later I had the chance to talk about it on stage. Here is my talk as a Magento maintainer at Meet Magento Spain 2019:

With fellow Magento developers The best part of the job: the people you meet along the way.

Would I recommend it?

Without a doubt. If you have ever thought about contributing to an open-source project you use every day:

  • It is easier than you think — start with something small, the community is welcoming.
  • You learn the internals far better than you ever would from the outside.
  • You meet amazing people from all over the world.
  • And you get to give back to a project that pays your bills.

Just open that first PR. You will not regret it.

Hope this helps.