2025-09-30 –, Gaston Berger
Four years ago, I had no idea what PyArrow was—or how open source development worked. But through mentorship, collaboration, and learning in public, I found not just a place in the community, but a sense of how open source evolves and connects.
In this keynote, I’ll share my experience on how complex projects like Apache Arrow evolve through shared protocols, cross-project conversations, and the people behind them. Along the way, we’ll look at the human side of technical work, the quiet strength of standards, and how imposter syndrome, while uncomfortable, has sharpened my curiosity and helped me find my own way of contributing.
My software development journey began with the open-source and the Apache Arrow project. In 2021, I made my first contribution to the Arrow R package—an experience that sparked my interest in software development and open-source collaboration. During my internship at Quansight, I was introduced to the Python DataFrame API standard, which deepened my understanding of interoperability challenges.
In 2022, after over a year of contributions, I became an Apache Arrow committer, primarily focusing on the Python implementation. I continued my work as a PyArrow maintainer at Voltron Data until mid-2024.
Apache Arrow remains the project I’m most passionate about, and I’m still actively involved in its development as a freelancer.