I learned about the AWS Community Builders program through some friends several months ago. Based on my open-source projects, they encouraged me to apply - so I did. A few months later, Amazon laid-off two of the program’s most critical and beloved leaders, which caused the community to worry about the program’s future. Although it sounds like there’s been some turbulence following those departures from AWS, the program is clearly still alive, as my application was approved under the category of “Dev Tools”.

At this current moment, I still haven’t received or signed the required NDA form or been added into the program’s Slack group (I’m supposed to receive those emails in the next few days), meaning my profile hasn’t been added to the AWS Community Builders webpage yet; however, this should change sometime in the next week or so.

I don’t have a crystal ball to gaze into (it’s in my childhood bedroom still) so I have no idea what the future holds, but my gut says this nomination will empower me to serve the open-source community far better than before. I released some great tools on my own, but organizational backing and recognition helps people discover those tools and also lends a level of credibility which a personal GitHub account lacks. Although I’ve been networking with developers at AWS for a long time, being part of the Community Builders program (with NDA protections) allows us to meaningfully collaborate. Crucially, membership reduces the friction associated with finding other like-minded engineers and collaborators; this too should help me serve the open-source community better.

Don’t get me wrong. I care about status and recognition like everybody else, but my main concern is continuing to build durable, robust, beautiful, ergonomic, and thoughtful tools which actually help people. I am excited to see how being part of the AWS Community Builders program will enable and empower me to release more high-quality tools for the open-source community.

Thank you to everybody who encouraged me to apply, as well as everybody who adopted and supported my work. It not only means a lot to me personally, it also empowers me to continue giving back to the open-source community and enhance the general AWS ecosystem.