My open source journey from user to contributor to CTO

The possibilities are endless for anyone thinking about a career in open source. Here's my story. When people ask me what I love most about open source, my answer is simple: It's the openness. With open source, the work that community developers and contributors do is in the public domain for all to see and benefit from. I couldn't love that philosophy more.

How many people can say that about the fruits of their labor? How many, perhaps 50 years from now, can look back and say, "Check out the code I wrote that day that hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands benefited from." I find that infinitely more exciting than working on software that's hidden from most of the world.

I'm fortunate that my job puts me in the middle of an interesting area where open source and enterprise meet. Today, I'm Chief Technology Officer of The OpenNMS Group, the company that maintains the OpenNMS project. OpenNMS is a leading open source network monitoring and management platform.

While my current role has me firmly rooted in open source, I started as a user and contributor.

In 2007, I got my first real tech job as a network analyst at Datavalet Technologies, a Montreal, Canada-based telecommunications service provider. Within five years, I expanded to a solutions architect role, where I was tasked with helping to select a network management solution for the organization. We chose OpenNMS, and it was through that experience that I realized the true power of open source.

While onboarding the platform, we identified some missing features that would help optimize our experience. A representative from The OpenNMS Group was on site to help us with the deployment and suggested I attend the community's upcoming DevJam to work with the core developers on building the capabilities tha