Behind the Scenes: A Look at the Kubernetes Contributor Summit 2023

Every year, just before the official opening of KubeCon+CloudNativeCon, a very special event takes place that holds a special place in the hearts of organizers and participants: the Kubernetes Contributor Summit. To find out why this is the case and to get a behind-the-scenes look, we interviewed Noah Abrahams, who served as a co-chair of the Kubernetes Contributor Summit 2023.

Frederico Muñoz (FSM): Hello Noah and welcome. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us how you got involved with Kubernetes?

Noah Abrahams (NA): I’ve been in this field for quite a while. I started in IT back in the 90s and have been working in the “Cloud” space for about 15 years. Honestly, it was a combination of sheer luck (being in the right place at the right time) and great mentors who put me in these positions (thanks, Tim!) that landed me at a startup called Apprenda in 2016. During my time there, they pivoted to Kubernetes, and it was the best thing that could have happened to my career. It was around v1.2, and someone asked me if I could give a presentation on Kubernetes concepts at “my local Meetup” in Las Vegas. The Meetup didn’t exist yet, so I founded it and got involved in the broader community. One thing led to another, and soon I was active in ContribEx, joined the Release Team, did booth duty for the CNCF, became an ambassador, and here we are today.

The Contributor Summit

FM: Before you led the organization of KCSEU 2023, how many other Contributor Summits had you participated in?

NA: I was involved in four or five before I took over leadership. If I recall correctly, I attended the Summit in Copenhagen, then I accidentally joined a wrong meeting in 2018 because the Summit staff meeting was listed on the ContribEx calendar. Instead of leaving the call, I listened in a bit and volunteered to work on a project that apparently no one was responsible for. I eventually led the Ops in Seattle and helped with the New Contributor Workshop in Shanghai. Since then, I’ve been involved in all but two, as I missed both Barcelona and Valencia.

FM: Have you noticed significant changes over the years in terms of conference organization? Namely regarding the number of attendees, venues, speakers, topics…

NA: The Summit evolves over the years with the desires of the attendees who come. While we can typically expect about the same number of attendees, depending on the region where the event is held, we heavily adjust the style and content based on the feedback we receive at the end of each event. In some years, attendees want more freestyle or unconference sessions, and we plan more of those, but in other years, people ask for more scheduled sessions or workshops, so we facilitate that. We also constantly have to adapt to the venue, the number of available rooms, how we share the space with other events, etc. All of this goes into planning ahead, from the number of talk tracks we want to the types of tables and how many microphones we want in a room.

However, one very significant change over the years is that we no longer conduct the New Contributor Workshop. While the content was valuable, holding the session during the Summit did not result in new attendees becoming active contributors to the project. Therefore, we removed it from the schedule. We will deliver this content in other ways while focusing the Summit on existing contributors.

Source: Kubernetes Blog