We’ve heard it for decades - being an open source maintainer is full-time job in itself. Writing features and maintaining the project are expected, but a project needs more than good features to create a robust community around it. Open source organizational design is usually an after thought but it doesn’t have to be. Taking the time to define those “hats” early on can help a project grow and be sustainable enough to not rely on a few maintainers to do it all. In this session, Paris Pittman will share her experience helping maintainers avoid burnout, handle governance operations, increase adopters, and building plans for community.

Is moderating your mailing list or chat platform something you want to do for the duration of the project as a lead maintainer? What about creating and writing all of the onboarding materials needed for contributors and users alike? In this session, we will draw from open source projects like Kubernetes, Swift, and others so that audience members will take away an action plan on building out intentional community roles, groups, and more so the many hats of maintainers are shared.