Read my blog post on how I got an @outreachy internship with Mozilla Firefox
The first time I applied to Outreachy was this year, for the May internship around, although I didn't make it past the contributor round, I was priviledged to work on great projects on accessibility and localization.
In particular, I worked on interpreting a Deutsch Transifex glossary from English to German. This was fun because I recently learned German in 2023 and 2024 and I'm currently at the B1 level, so it was exciting to use the language at a professional level.
The second time I applied to Outreachy was this year July/August thereabout, for the October Contributor period and subsequently for the December through March 2025 Internship round. I got chosen for the Contributor stage and later on got accepted for the internship as a Mozilla Firefox Intern working on their JavaScript engine.
The Contributor Stage
The contributor stage is a month long open source contribution period, where you choose two projects from different firms to work with and contribute to.
The projects usually have a list of required, preferred, nice to have skills that one must have in order to successfully contribute to the projects and stand a chance to be accepted as an intern. Projects range from Accessibility, Localisation, Frontend, Backend, Shell, Devops, Marketing, Design, Data and Geospatial Analysis.
You don't necessarily have to know how to code to be an Outreachy Intern as the projects and firms are diverse and vary from each internship round.
The projects that I chose require development and engineering knowledge and I was lucky to be chosen by my first choice which was Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla was my first choice because the issues were broken down into good first issues issues which made it easy to find files, functions etc in the codebase and start contributing which was pretty neat.
Also Mozilla is a notable firm to contribute to. The mentors Daniel and Arai, were very helpful and were quick in giving feedback. They were also very accessible and reachable through out the contribution stage.
Contributor Stage Tips
Are your issues merged?:
Aim to have at least four issues merged into the codebase. Outreachy organizers look at your contributions during the final application, so document your progress carefully. If you are working on non-development tasks, ask your mentor what this looks like for you.
Ask Detailed Questions:
When stuck, ask detailed questions, e.g., "I encountered this bug while doing XYZ. Here's what I tried and what didn't work. How can I proceed?" This demonstrates initiative and problem-solving.
Be Efficient:
The contributor stage can be competitive. Prioritize tasks, engage with mentors, and ensure you are consistently making progress.
Apart from working on a couple of bugs during my contributor stage, I worked on the ErrorIsError TC39 proposal which was a full feature complete with tests. It tested me for a moment but it also helped me understand the codebase and find things, pre-defined error messages etc. I also got to work with C++ on a production level codebase which was fun.
During the contributor period, I kept a diary on my substack open source newsletter of the experience, highs, lows, blockers and how I resolved them. You can access it here to see what mind space I was in at the time.
Week 1 Status Report
I just started my Internship as of 9th December 2024. Apart from these blog posts, I will continue writing my weekly diary reports on my Substack should anyone fancy reading that or following along my journey. I anticipate to post a lot after the holidays or from January 2025.
I spoke with my mentors last week and have a few issues assigned to me from last week Thursday thereabout that I have already started on. We'll have more detailed reports and blog posts as the weeks go by.
Until the next report, bye.
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