Becoming a contributor to an open-source project is a transformative step in any developer's career. This session explores the journey from first-time contributor to active developer, covering best practices for navigating project communities, understanding codebases, and making meaningful contributions. Learn strategies for selecting the right project, mastering collaboration tools, and embracing the culture of open-source development. The audience will be inspired about my one year journey with the open source project OpenTelemetry and how I have built a proof of concept for it and achieved developer status for this project. By the end of this talk, the public will gain insights into the tools to become a better developer and how to build more engagement with the community.

Cloud Native is not just about containers & Kubernetes; it’s about the people who build and shape its future. Women in tech are breaking barriers across OSS projects, security, observability, AI, and platform engineering & driving innovation.

However, their journey is not without challenges. Women in tech face under-representation in leadership roles, hiring biases, lack of mentorship, open-source gatekeeping, work-life balance struggles, and unequal pay. Despite these hurdles, they continue to drive change by leading projects and mentoring the next generation of engineers. We will discuss actionable ways to support new women entering Cloud Native, including mentorship programs, up-skilling initiatives, and open-source contribution pathways.

This talk will highlight real-world success stories of women in CNCF shaping the ecosystem while addressing the systemic barriers they navigate and how we can all contribute to a more inclusive future.