My name is Victor Zeddys Ochieng, and I recently graduated from Strathmore University with a degree in Informatics and Computer Science.
I found out about the Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellowship on Twitter and was drawn by the opportunity to learn how to contribute to open source projects. I participated in the Open Source track of the MLH Fellowship and ended up contributing to Apache Ozone with the team at G-Research.
Contributing to Apache Ozone with G-Research
Through the MLH Fellowship, I got to contribute to Apache Ozone together with the team at G-Research. It is an open source distributed object store designed for high-performance, scalable, and fault-tolerant storage of large datasets. It’s a viable option for other object stores like AWS S3 and Google Cloud Storage.
While working on my project, I learned how to navigate large codebases and how to reproduce errors in order to tackle them. We also wrote a lot of tests and got introduced to frameworks like the Robot framework for smoke tests.
My Average Day as an MLH Fellow
I would have stand up at 5pm EAT where we got to talk about what we had completed, projects in progress, and any blockers we were experiencing. Afterward, I would proceed to work on my ticket together with my podmate. On some days, I would join the ozone stand-up to update the G-Research team on our progress.
My pod was very diverse with people from different continents and time zones. I especially enjoyed working with my podmate, and our mentor who was a former MLH Fellow collaborating with G-Research. The MLH Fellowship has built a culture that revolves around teamwork and growth. Through this opportunity, fellows learn how to work in teams and how to properly communicate on their progress or challenges.
Interested in the MLH Fellowship?
The MLH Fellowship helped me improve my ability to work with large codebases, and taught me the importance of using design patterns to write maintainable code. The program exposes you to very interesting projects that employers find very interesting.
For more information about the MLH Fellowship and to apply for the program, visit our website here. Stay connected with Victor on LinkedIn here!