Learning Software Engineering Through Open Source

Talk Summary

I had the opportunity to deliver a guest lecture at Teknikhögskolan on how developers can accelerate their software engineering growth through open source.

Drawing from my own open-source experience, I shared practical examples of contributing code, documentation, and CI/CD improvements across multiple projects, along with how sustained open-source contributions can create professional opportunities.

Highlights

• Explored how open source provides real-world software engineering experience beyond classroom learning.
• Examined the lifecycle of contributing to mature open-source projects, from understanding unfamiliar codebases to submitting production-ready pull requests.
• Discussed how maintainers evaluate contributions and why engineering quality extends beyond writing code.
• Shared personal experiences contributing across AI and machine learning ecosystems.
• Concluded with a discussion on how AI is changing developer workflows while reinforcing the importance of strong engineering fundamentals.

Key Takeaways

• Reading and contributing to production code accelerates engineering growth more effectively than isolated projects.
• Software engineering is as much about collaboration, communication, and review as it is about implementation.
• Viewing open source as an interconnected ecosystem helps developers identify higher-impact opportunities.
• Consistent, high-quality contributions build technical credibility and can create career opportunities.
• AI tools are most effective when paired with a solid understanding of software engineering principles.

Organizer’s Feedback

Thank you Mr. Ekbote for an outstanding presentation! One of the students already started to engage in an OSS repo the very same day. I’m sure more will follow. You were quite the inspirational speaker!

Resources

• Slides: Download slides