Tobiko

Announcing: SQLMesh Community Contributors Program

The SQLMesh Community Contributors Program is a strategic initiative to recognize and empower passionate individuals who actively contribute to the SQLMesh ecosystem. This program aims to foster a sense of community, celebrate contributors’ efforts, and drive further innovation and engagement in SQLMesh's open-source and development environment.

Read on to learn how we reward and support our contributors, and get to know our first batch of community "SELECT Top" contributors!

Why we're starting this program

We designed the SQLMesh Community Contributors Program to:

  • Provide a shared space to continue growing SQLMesh as a robust open source tool in the data engineering ecosystem.
  • Recognize and celebrate the dedication of contributors and enhance the SQLMesh community by highlighting their creativity and expertise.
  • Build an engaged developer ecosystem around SQLMesh that is valuable and impactful for the community members.

What you get as a contributor

1. Recognition and benefits

We believe that meaningful acknowledgment serves as a powerful catalyst for fostering motivation, encouraging continuous learning, and building a stronger sense of community. Here's our comprehensive approach to recognizing the valuable contributions of our community members:

Public Recognition:

  • Showcase outstanding contributions and innovative solutions through dedicated features on the official SQLMesh website, detailed blog posts highlighting technical achievements, and regular updates across our social media channels. Although this won’t be limited to just those within the program itself! So, if you’ve made any contributions lately keep an eye out for a shout-out from us 😉
  • Feature contributors and their impactful projects through in-depth newsletters, detailed spotlight articles, and community success stories that (hopefully!) inspire others.

Exclusive Opportunities:

  • Priority access to SQLMesh updates, cutting-edge experimental features, and participation in comprehensive beta testing programs to shape product development.
  • Personal invitations to collaborate in strategic product roadmap sessions and contribute meaningful insights to critical design discussions.

Rewards and Incentives:

  • Premium branded merchandise including limited-edition t-shirts, custom-designed stickers, high-quality notebooks, and other exclusive SQLMesh and Tobiko Data themed items.
  • Prestigious digital badges and detailed certificates that formally acknowledge specific contributions and expertise within the SQLMesh ecosystem.
  • Special recognition and speaking opportunities at SQLMesh-hosted conferences, technical workshops, and partner events throughout the year.

2. Exclusive resources and team access

To ensure contributors feel fully equipped for success within our community, we provide a comprehensive suite of resources:

Training and perks:

  • Comprehensive access to specialized training sessions, in-depth technical workshops, and exclusive detailed documentation specifically crafted to deepen their understanding and mastery of SQLMesh's advanced features and capabilities.
  • Substantial credits or opportunities to participate, organize, or host exclusive initiatives, including technical hackathons, local meetups, educational content creation, and collaborative learning sessions.

Paths to Ownership:

  • Opportunities to take the lead on significant projects, such as spearheading the development of new SQLMesh integrations, creating comprehensive templates, or developing detailed tutorials that benefit the entire community.
  • Substantial autonomy to propose, design, and drive enhancements within the SQLMesh framework, with direct input into the platform's evolution and improvement.

3. Teaching and collaboration opportunities

The program goes beyond merely acknowledging individual contributions - it is fundamentally designed to cultivate and nurture an ecosystem where every member can meaningfully participate and grow. Through carefully structured initiatives and engagement opportunities, we've created a comprehensive framework that includes:

Knowledge Sharing:

  • Organizing and facilitating regular interactive forums, comprehensive technical webinars, and in-depth Q&A sessions where contributors can share their valuable experiences, best practices, and innovative solutions with fellow community members.
  • Establishing and continuously updating a detailed contributors' hall of fame to document, showcase, and celebrate the wide range of impactful contributions that shape our community.

Collective Initiatives:

  • Actively identifying and carefully facilitating teamwork opportunities by connecting contributors with complementary skills and interests for collaborative projects and initiatives.
  • Providing structured support and guidance to encourage contributors in developing and sharing reusable SQLMesh assets, including custom plugins, optimized query patterns, and innovative solutions that benefit the entire community.

Community Spotlights:

  • Consistently highlighting and celebrating impactful contributions (including technical blog posts, educational videos, practical tools, and innovative solutions) through dedicated features in SQLMesh's community Slack channels, comprehensive social media coverage, and detailed newsletter spotlights.

Steps to Join

Contributors can be nominated based on their engagement in the community, such as:

  • Submitting meaningful pull requests or solving critical issues in SQLMesh’s codebase.
  • Actively participating in community discussions or helping others resolve technical challenges.
  • Creating content like tutorials, blogs, or videos about SQLMesh.
  • Organizing or contributing to community events, workshops, or meetups.

After review, accepted contributors are inducted into the program with a tailored onboarding plan and access to all resources and benefits. Be on the lookout for our call for nominations in our community slack (you can nominate others or yourself!)

The First 5 Members of the ✨ SELECT Top Group✨

We are thrilled to welcome the first five members to the SQLMesh Community Contributors Program! Each of these individuals has made remarkable contributions, showcasing their dedication to advancing the SQLMesh ecosystem. Here’s a bit about them:

  • Alex Butler: Alex, a community member since March 2022 and a team member at Harness, has been instrumental in growing SQLMesh. From numerous pull requests and issue reports on GitHub to writing an insightful blog on transitioning from dbt to SQLMesh (read here), Alex has consistently shared expertise. Additionally, their case study with the team (available here) highlights SQLMesh's practical value.
  • Philippe Laflamme: Joining the community in April 2023 from Hopper, Philippe is a GitHub powerhouse with 18 pull requests since becoming a member. Their contributions span bug fixes, documentation improvements, and new features like slack notifications. Notable highlights include the initial version of signals for the built-in scheduler (PR #2822), the forall audit (PR #698), improved slack messages (PR #2144), bug fixes for the BigQuery engine (PR #3185) and impactful documentation updates (PR #794).
  • Christophe Oudar: Christophe, who joined in August 2023 and works at Teads, has significantly contributed by refining the dbt adaptor and providing feedback through issues and pull requests. Beyond code, Christophe is an advocate for SQLMesh, having authored multiple blogs to share insights and inspire others in the community.
  • Nico Ritschel: Nico has been an active community member since January 2023 and represents ATM.com. A social presence within the community, especially on Twitter, Nico created the Awesome SQLMesh GitHub repository to curate valuable resources and was instrumental in advocating for the addition of MySQL support, pushing the boundaries of SQLMesh's capabilities.
  • Gerry Finlay: Gerry, who joined the community in November 2023 and works at Orennia, has quickly become a cornerstone of the SQLMesh Slack community. Always ready to help others, Gerry supports fellow members by answering questions, identifying bugs, and suggesting valuable feature requests. He’s also enhanced SQLMesh through the addition of support for variable identifiers. Currently, Gerry is collaborating with his team at Orennia on a technical developer blog to share deeper insights into SQLMesh and its applications.

These leaders are shining examples of the SQLMesh community’s talent, and we’re excited to see their ongoing contributions! In the coming months, we'll be publishing dedicated features on each of our SELECT Top members. If you're a SQLMesh enthusiast, and haven't already done so, join our Slack today and start contributing to get your own spotlight in the future!