Maybe you’re wondering if volunteering for Joomla is your thing. You might be uncertain about your English or your knowledge, or about what would be expected in terms of commitment and time. I get that. I was really hesitant about all these things myself. But I did it anyway, I found a team that suits me, started working, and soon discovered that volunteering can be rewarding in ways I had never expected. And I’m not the only one: in this article, five Joomlers tell us what volunteering brings for them! 

Laura Gordon

As a ‘virtual’ worker it is often easy to feel alone in the world. Volunteering with the Joomla project (in any capacity) gives me connections with people all over the world. It is rewarding to help the project in any way that I can. But more importantly it makes me feel less alone. If I have an issue I have dozens of people that I can ask for assistance. Joomla as a project has given me a career and at the same time Joomla as a technology has given me a community of friends.

Robert Deutz

Being a Joomla volunteer has brought me a lot of friends all over the world and many good memories. I have been to places I probably would haven't been to when I was not involved in the project. And a sustainable business over the last 15 years.

Hannes Papenberg 

Volunteering for Joomla means that I have lots of moments of success and that I can play with interesting stuff. Creating new features (like admin template or mail templates) or improving existing ones (Smart Search or tagging) can be very satisfying. On the other hand, working on quality tools (our CI setup with Drone, code style checks, static code analysers and automated tests) has taught me valuable skills for my work. Oh, yes, work! Volunteering for Joomla has opened up a career as a successful freelancer. Customers regularly contact me to ask for my availability and I had more than one customer who was happy to contribute some of my paid work back to the community. I would definitely not be where I am right now without Joomla.

Tuan Pham Ngoc

As an extension developer, writing code is what I'm good at. That's why I decided to join the Joomla! Bug Squad team, where I work with other team members to fix the reported bugs, answer the questions on open issues, review and test PRs from other contributors and help it get merged. I also helped convert the Weblinks extension to Joomla 4, and I've now become maintainer of that extension.

I wish I could explain how happy I was when I started contributing to Joomla and received lots of help from the more experienced developers. I'm very grateful for that.

From my experience, volunteering for Joomla! is not just a way to give back to Joomla: it also helps improve my programming skills, make me become a better programmer. I have good connections with other contributors, too, team members in the Bug Squad, and also members from the CMS Maintenance team. I feel comfortable to discuss, work together to get problems solved, and ask for help when it is needed.

I also realize that my contribution is recognized. Many customers know that I contribute to the Joomla core code, so they trust my extensions more and support my development.

Overall, I'm really happy to be one of the Joomla! contributors.

Olivier Buisard

In my line of work, I do interact with lots of people, but most of the time through emails. I have been volunteering for events like Joomla Camps and Joomla Days, and this helped me face my fear of speaking in public. Meeting people who share a common interest is a wonderful experience. Volunteering gives me a real sense of community. I find it amazing that so many people can work together and produce a product like Joomla. It brings me confidence and pride in my ability to help others and motivates me to grow, as an individual and as a developer.

Join us!

Inspiring stories, right? Guess what: next year this could be your story. You just need to take the first step!

Join us on Mattermost (here’s how: https://magazine.joomla.org/all-issues/november-2022/getting-the-most-out-of-mattermost).

Check out the teams in the Volunteer portal: https://volunteers.joomla.org/teams and https://volunteers.joomla.org/help-wanted.

And go for it - I can’t wait to hear your story next year!