WIP - Software Developer Contributor Self-Assess Onboarding Path

WIP - some of this will be moved to separate pages

Step 1 : Draft pages

Step 2: Contributor interviews / polls

Step 3: Reassess based on feedback and launch

Welcome to the LiteFarm contributor self assign workflow!

We at LiteFarm want to provide something of value to you in return for your contribution! In order to do that we wanted to have an organised process for welcoming new contributors in a way that helps you get all that you can from LiteFarm in a way that is best for your interest!

We would like to give back to you – while you are giving to us ! Be that work experience, volunteer hours or other!

Please take a look at some general interests we have identified and how we think we can address those interests. If one of the onboarding paths interest you please take a look at that onboarding page by clicking the link!

I am primarily looking for:

A paid job at LiteFarm → Check out: I want to work for LiteFarm!
Software Development experience → Check out: I want to grow as a developer!
- Other areas like UI/UX, QA, Business Development etc?
Volunteer hours at a non-profit → Check out: I want to give back!
A way to help farmers! → Check out: I want to help farmers!
A only want a place to build cool things! → Check out: I just want to build cool stuff!
Something Else… → Please let us know what we are missing and add your comment below !

I Want to Work for LiteFarm!

Awesome! And we want to have you!

But… for this section let us share a few resources and try to be upfront and honest about our upcoming vacancies.

First of all please check out our careers page to see if what you are looking for is already available.

As a small non-profit our resources are unfortunately, limited. That means that there is a chance that we may not be hiring for a role you are interested in for quite some time. But if you are interested in being a regular contributor anyways and you want to be first in line when any new opportunities arise your best path will be to check out one of these resources:

Developers check out → I want to grow as a developer!

Our current capacity for paid employees is as follows:

Product Lead

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 0
Outlook: Unlikely to increase capacity in the mid term as this is currently the “CEO” position at LiteFarm
Mentorship capacity: ?

Farm Success Coordinator

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (Possibly foreseeable increase in coming year or two)
Mentorship capacity: ?

UI/UX Designer

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (unlikely to increase in the mid term as industry average puts designer to developer ratio at 1:10 or 1:20)
Mentorship capacity: ?

Quality Assurance

Current capacity: 2
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (unlikely to increase in the mid term as industry average puts designer to developer ratio at 1:3 or 1:5)
Mentorship capacity: ?

Full Stack Software Development

Can vary wildly based on skill, communication and goals but first google result suggests roughly 1:4:12 ratio of Senior:Intermediate:Junior developers.

Junior Full Stack

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (Possibly foreseeable increase in coming year or two)
Mentorship capacity: Currently open to all who are interested. Check out: I want to grow as a developer

Intermediate Full Stack

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (Possibly foreseeable increase in coming year or two)
Mentorship capacity: Currently open to all who are interested. Check out: I want to grow as a developer

Senior Full Stack

Current capacity: 0
Open positions: 0
Outlook: ? (Possibly foreseeable increase in coming year or two)
Mentorship capacity: Currently open to all who are interested. Check out: I want to grow as a developer

Technical Lead

Current capacity: 1
Open positions: 1 –> Check out Careers
Outlook: ? (Possibly foreseeable increase in coming year or two)
Mentorship capacity: Currently open to all who are interested. Check out: I want to grow as a developer

I want to grow as a Developer

This is great news and we want to help you grow! (no pun intended). Should we ever be hiring… your contribution will be a huge step ahead of other applicants.

This page will look into the best way to incorporate you as a equal team member under the direction of our technical lead. If you are more interested in simply building cool stuff and showing it off please check out → I just want to build cool stuff!

From here we will need you to self-assess your skill and comfort level as a developer and with our stack:

I am:

I am…	Characteristics may include..	LiteFarm Onboarding Path	Intangibles
A complete newbie	Almost zero experience programming No specific language proficiency	JS Bootcamp recommendation Secondary interest bootcamp recommendation Mentor check-ins → Junior Dev Path	Mentorship Networking
A junior developer	This may be your first or second experience working on a production codebase May or may not be familiar with our stack	LiteFarm local running LiteFarm development processes (github, testing ,linting, etc) Guided stack journey through Jira tickets and ticket review Mentor check-ins Mentor opportunities Education suggestions	Job references Job hunt help Mentorship Networking
An intermediate developer	Developing on a production codebase for several years In a position to mentor juniors Likely familiar with at least some of the stack	→ Accelerated Junior Dev Path Mentorship responsibilities Guided interest specialisation (CI/CD, testing, db architecture, frontend, api, server etc) Education opportunities	Mentor opportunities Leadership opportunities Networking
A senior developer	Developing on a production codebase for many years In a position to mentor intermediates Likely familiar with at least some of the stack	→ Accelerated intermediate path Guided full-stack specialisation Mentorship responsibilities Leadership opportunities	Mentor opportunities Leadership opportunities Operations opportunities Networking

Guided stack journey (first draft)

An informal checklist of things to learn about LiteFarm and programming. The “type/review” means both creation of the code and review of others code of same type. I think a true understanding of what this stack journey should look like will come from sorting and categorising Jira tickets.

Order (Simultaneous)	High Level Concept	Resources	Jira ticket tags/Badges
1	Bootcamp	external	N/A
2	Local Setup	Litefarm
2	Github Beginner	litefarm external	Beginner-easyfix Beginner-easyfix-review
3S	Navigating Frontend		Beginner-CSS/Review Beginner-Story/Review Beginner-PureComponent/Review Beginner-Container/Review Beginner-Forms/Review Beginner-Selector/Review Beginner-Saga/Review
3S	Navigating Backend		Beginner-Routes/Review Beginner-Controllers/Review Beginner-Validation/Review Beginner-Models/Review
3S	Navigating mono-repo		Beginner-Package.json/Review Beginner-Devtools/Review Beginner-Database/Review Beginner-CI/Review Beginner-Env/Review
3S	Beginner mentorship		Mentor a newbie Peer programming
4S	Understanding Github		Github Actions/Review Merging/Review Management/Review
4S	Understanding Frontend		Feature-View/Review Feature-Form/Review
4S	Understanding Backend		Feature with controller/Review Feature with migration/Review Feature with validation/Review Feature with model/Review
4S	Understanding monorepo		Dockerfiles/Review Docker development/Review Configuration/Review package.json vulnerability/Review
4S	Beginner requirements		Requirements pushback/Review Requirements collaboration/Review Dev process creation/review minor documentation/review
4S	Understanding mentorship		Mentor a junior Peer programming Run a sprint meeting
5S	Understanding Deployment		CI improvement/review Server differentiation/review
5S	Understanding architecture		Frontend Requirements creation/review Backend Requirements creation/review
5S	Understanding requirements		major documentation/review feature development/collaboration/review triage backlog/review
5S	Leadership		Mentor intermediates

I want to give back !

Thats great news, we have lots of ways to donate time!

For your service to us please let us know if we can provide any of the following:

Letter of reference
Certificate of recognition
Volunteer hours sign-off
Blog about your contribution?

There are lots of way you can give to our community:

Professional services and feedback (Check out → I want to grow as a developer)
Resource groups
Product testing
Release Sanity
etc…

I want to help farmers!

We are glad you are so passionate about our cause! While our goals are to meet the needs of our users(farmers) we sometimes fall short or have to balance responsibilities. We think the best way in the long run would be to participate in our regular development process (Check out → I want to grow as a developer) But if you are a person who is motivated to go straight for requested features you can check some out our suggestion portal here.

Disclaimer: We absolutely love and support this way of contributing to farmers but we must maintain certain design and code quality standards so be aware that anything brought to production will still need to be thoroughly reviewed.

I just want to build cool stuff!

Woo! We are DOWN for this type of contribution. But real talk we must maintain certain design and code quality standards so be aware that anything brought to production will still need to be thoroughly reviewed!

Okay sounds good? The best way to do this would be through an innovation session. Basically you do a slide show about your idea. We would offer our feedback or provide things to consider – then you can go ahead and build it! You can see some examples of innovation sessions here.

Even if your idea is not ultimately selected we may be able to find ways to showcase your working prototypes – like through blog posts or social media!

END.