Linux Foundation Application

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Introduction

Prompts
  1. What is your current status, are you a student/transitioning into a new career?
  1. What are your goals and aspirations?
  1. Why are you interested in this mentorship opportunity?
  1. Tell us something that makes you unique as an applicant.
Hey, I'm Winston!
I'm a final year Computer Engineering student at the National University of Singapore (NUS), with a passion for software engineering. Since the start of university, I've learnt from 10 back-to-back internships at renowned firms such as Binance, Tiktok, Coinbase and ByteDance, where I've had great impact/contributions to the teams I've joined.
My short term goal is to learn what it means to be a good engineer, and to become one.
I believe strongly in learning from experience, and that unique experiences drive growth. This is why I'm interested in this mentorship opportunity - although I have experience shipping production code for companies that impact millions, I haven't had the experience of contributing to open-source. I think the opportunity to translate the skills and knowledge I've obtained into impact in the open-source world would be a wonderful experience
I believe that my strong passion and willingness to learn/grow as an engineer stands out, especially since I already have a proven record of being a sufficiently good engineer. The experiences I've had have shaped me to also know how to thrive in ambiguity and independently work through problems, which I think will be handy when working in open-source.
 

Cover Letter

Prompts
  • How did you find out about our mentorship program?
  • Why are you interested in this program?
  • What experience and knowledge/skills do you have that are applicable to this program?
  • What do you hope to get out of this mentorship experience?
To whom it concerns,
I learned about the LFX mentorship program through a friend. I was quickly interested as contributing to open-source was something I was always interested in, and this interest only grew when I read more about the program.
I am particularly interested in the program as I believe it aligns with my background and aspirations. My short term goal is to discover what good engineering means and to learn to grow into a proficient engineer. My belief is that learning and growth comes from (unique) experiences, which is why I optimise for experience and have done 10 back-to-back internships at reputable companies such as Binance, TikTok, Coinbase and ByteDance. This belief is also the main reason why I want to experience contributing to (mature) open-source projects.
I believe that my experiences have made me a sufficiently good engineer who is technically strong, can communicate well and also navigate through ambiguities. I have shipped production code that affects millions of users - for example, the changes I made to the payments platform at Coinbase directly improved the routing capabilities for all payment methods at Coinbase. Beyond code, I also value documentation. At every place I contribute to, I seek to improve the state of documentation and the onboarding process.In all my past experiences, I have proven myself to be a valuable asset through positive impacts/contributions, which is what makes me a fit for the LFX mentorship program.
My main hope is to be able to contribute to a more technical problem than I’m used to, where I can translate the skills and knowledge I have into some impact in the open-source world, and in doing so gain the knowledge and skills from my mentors who are seasoned maintainers of open-source projects.
Thank you for considering my application. I look forward to the possibility of learning from—and contributing to—your open-source ecosystem.
Sincerely,
Winston Lim