Hey! Big news first: I join Mozilla on October 1st to work on Firefox full-time! Specifically a software engineer on the DOM Core team. I am extremely excited to work on the web platform full-time. This post covers the basics of who and how. If you have any questions feel free to DM me. (Good luck job hunters!)
Who
I go by CanadaHonk (I prefer not to share my full name publicly/obviously online). Summary of yours truly:
- I live in the UK (but have no particular allegiance)
- My programming knowledge is entirely self-taught in my free time. I have not been to (UK) university/etc (and do not plan to for now).
- My free time is spent largely on programming open source projects (my own and others, large and small). Mostly Firefox (more below), my JS compiler, and more recently Node.js.
How
Since about February this year, I began contributing to Gecko (Firefox's web engine). I started by fixing some small CDP (Chrome's remote debugging protocol) bugs I had encountered while working on a personal project. I then got hooked and did more complex things like adding some new commands/features which I found handy.
Next I began branching out: doing a bit of work on Necko (Gecko's network stack); and layout/Stylo (Servo's style system in Gecko). I slowly started doing more and more layout work until I am mostly just working on that.
Finally, I went from only smaller/simpler fixes to implementing new web platform features. Here's a list of notable things I've added to Firefox this year in my free time:
@media (scripting)(113)- CSS
NaN/infinityfixes + ship (114) @import supports()(115)URL.canParse()(115)<search>(118)attr()fallback (119)@media (prefers-reduced-transparency)(behind pref)@media (inverted-colors)(behind pref)- NVIDIA Video Super Resolution (behind pref)
If you like stats; I was the ~5th highest individual contributor this year by commits (source), as of writing, I have:
- Submitted 93 patches
- Filed 80 bugs
- Filed 9 intents (2 prototype, 3 ship, 4 prototype+ship)
A few months ago, a Mozillian suggested I try to get a job there, then I started talking with some people about a potential contract... and now here we are! Still feels quite surreal. Thank you to many Mozillians for supporting me, reviewing patches, and just generally being great people! :)