HACKER Q&A
📣 hejhdiss

How can a new back end dev start contributing to real-world open source?


Hi HN,

I’ve been learning backend development using Python and FastAPI. I’ve built small projects with JWT authentication (including refresh tokens), basic WebSocket messaging, and REST APIs.

I’d like to start contributing to real-world open-source projects in a way that’s actually useful to maintainers.

Any advice or pointers on where to start?

Thanks!

  👤 gus_massa Accepted Answer ✓
What open sources projects are you using? Start with nice bugs reports, look how they fix it, and next time perhaps you can fix it. (Or send a good bug report, don't underestimate how useful they are.)
👤 LuckyBuddy
Good First Issue （https://goodfirstissue.dev/ ）is a super handy site that collects beginner-friendly tasks from popular GitHub projects. You can easily find something to work on based on your preferred language.