Request for membership

Hi everyone.
I just want to take a moment and introduce myself, as I would like to become a PyPA member.

My name is Julie Jones. I have been a software developer for 30+ years and Python has become my passion. I’ve used it professionally for almost 20 years. I primarily worked at startup companies and really enjoyed helping them get past the first hump and implement repeatable processes and tools. I championed and instituted continuous integration at multiple companies, so I do have a significant background in the area of dev tooling. I love automating the repetitive parts of development.

Over the years I have seen the python packaging ecosystem evolve slowly. It now seems like it is a priority and much effort is being spent to bring it to par with all the other language ecosystems. I would like to contribute.

I have been doing extensive research into the current tool-set and inhibitors to python development, both by newcomers and experienced pythonistas, where it is more of an efficiency issue. I think the python community is going to see huge changes in the next few years. I am finally in a position to devote significant time to the Python community and I would like to participate.

Thanks,
Julie

4 Likes

Hi Julie, welcome to the community!

We have a governance document, PEP 609, which describes how the PyPA operates. On the topic of individual membership in the PyPA, it says:

This is for members of individual projects to decide, as they add new members to their projects. Maintainership of a project that is under the PyPA organization automatically transfers membership in the PyPA.

This means that in order to become a PyPA member, you must become a maintainer of one of the PyPA projects. I would encourage you to find a PyPA project that you care about (most are listed here: https://github.com/pypa) and follow the project’s steps to become a contributor first. Many projects have good-first-issue labels on issues that are approachable for first-time contributors.

Additionally, I’d recommend communicating to the existing maintainers of the project you choose that you’re interested in becoming a maintainer. They may be able to provide additional mentorship or guidance that they normally wouldn’t have the bandwidth to provide to every contributor.

Finally, keep in mind that this may take a while. The process of becoming a maintainer generally involves showing that you can make repeated, meaningful contributions (whether they’re triaging/debugging issues, communicating effectively to users, or fixing bugs or adding features) over a period of time, building trust with the existing maintainers.

2 Likes

Although I am not a PyPA member, per my understanding, it works
both ways, i.e. one can also become a member through submitting
a project under PyPA umbrella in a vote. Either way it still takes
time to build trusts with other existing members.

Great point, that is true! But arguably a harder path if the goal is to become a member. :slightly_smiling_face:

Welcome :blush:

With that background, I think a good place to start would be GitHub - pypa/packaging.python.org: Python Packaging User Guide. That would also give you a great opportunity to discover the projects you’d be more interested to contribute too.

1 Like

Hi, @julie – have you been able to get going contributing to one of the existing PyPA software projects? If not, please reply and say so and we can get into a chat and give you more specific guidance!