Alya Abbott

Yeah, so we have a pretty small kind of core team of folks who are paid full-time to work on, or full-time or part-time, I guess, to work on Zulip. And we do think that's really important kind of as part of our model that there is... a team of really talented expert engineers and other folks for whom this is their day job.

Yeah, so we have a pretty small kind of core team of folks who are paid full-time to work on, or full-time or part-time, I guess, to work on Zulip. And we do think that's really important kind of as part of our model that there is... a team of really talented expert engineers and other folks for whom this is their day job.

It's really hard to run a project where it's kind of a side gig for everybody. So with this core team, we've also invested a lot into... making it really easy for folks to get started contributing to Zulop. So there's been a huge amount of investment into creating the space for a really active, really lively community around it as well.

It's really hard to run a project where it's kind of a side gig for everybody. So with this core team, we've also invested a lot into... making it really easy for folks to get started contributing to Zulop. So there's been a huge amount of investment into creating the space for a really active, really lively community around it as well.

And that comes in terms of like tons and tons of documentation I think you saw. some of our production documentation. There's also tons of contributor side documentation from, you know, as you mentioned, how systems work, but also just the contribution process, what a good pull request looks like for us, kind of everything about that process.

And that comes in terms of like tons and tons of documentation I think you saw. some of our production documentation. There's also tons of contributor side documentation from, you know, as you mentioned, how systems work, but also just the contribution process, what a good pull request looks like for us, kind of everything about that process.

And that's really something that we put a lot of thought into, like what is that process of contributing and how do we make that a really excellent experience both for us in terms of kind of reviewing the work as well as for the contributors themselves and make that a really great experience positive experience, great learning experience for folks.

And that's really something that we put a lot of thought into, like what is that process of contributing and how do we make that a really excellent experience both for us in terms of kind of reviewing the work as well as for the contributors themselves and make that a really great experience positive experience, great learning experience for folks.

So for example, on the order of 15 paid team members, we had 124 people contribute to our last major release. So that's about a six-month cycle. So it's a lot of folks who are either doing, some of them are doing kind of a formal internship program with us. We've been participating in Google Summer of Code for the past for a number of years now.

So for example, on the order of 15 paid team members, we had 124 people contribute to our last major release. So that's about a six-month cycle. So it's a lot of folks who are either doing, some of them are doing kind of a formal internship program with us. We've been participating in Google Summer of Code for the past for a number of years now.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but basically Google funds internships for open source projects as well as kind of managing that overall structure of helping folks find projects to work on. So that's been amazing for us. Most years we have about 15 to 20 interns, most of them mentored by kind of alumni of the program or other community members.

I don't know if you're familiar with it, but basically Google funds internships for open source projects as well as kind of managing that overall structure of helping folks find projects to work on. So that's been amazing for us. Most years we have about 15 to 20 interns, most of them mentored by kind of alumni of the program or other community members.

And that's been another really great way for us to bring folks into the community. So yeah, but it's, you know, Zulp is open source, not just in the sense of like the code being open, but really just in our whole model of how we develop the product and how we engage with contributors, how we engage with our users. You know, one time, I guess one of our...

And that's been another really great way for us to bring folks into the community. So yeah, but it's, you know, Zulp is open source, not just in the sense of like the code being open, but really just in our whole model of how we develop the product and how we engage with contributors, how we engage with our users. You know, one time, I guess one of our...

Folks who joined recently, he started out as an intern and then joined as a full-time team member. And he commented that he was surprised when he got added to kind of all our private company channels, just how little traffic there is in those channels.

Folks who joined recently, he started out as an intern and then joined as a full-time team member. And he commented that he was surprised when he got added to kind of all our private company channels, just how little traffic there is in those channels.

Like he was thinking that, you know, when we were giving him feedback on things he was working on, maybe we're like somewhere off on the side discussing that amongst ourselves. And then like...

Like he was thinking that, you know, when we were giving him feedback on things he was working on, maybe we're like somewhere off on the side discussing that amongst ourselves. And then like...

providing the summary version he was like oh wait no that's not how it works i was like no no no yeah we if we're talking about how the product should work we just talk about that in the open and you know that way everybody can kind of see understand the decisions can can contribute to the decisions like yeah we're very like non-hierarchical in terms of it's really about what your ideas are and how clearly you communicate them and explain to them not you know what

providing the summary version he was like oh wait no that's not how it works i was like no no no yeah we if we're talking about how the product should work we just talk about that in the open and you know that way everybody can kind of see understand the decisions can can contribute to the decisions like yeah we're very like non-hierarchical in terms of it's really about what your ideas are and how clearly you communicate them and explain to them not you know what