"Before 'open source' was even coined, I was living it daily...."
In this edition of Coffee with Calyptus, we are joined by Ted Vortex, Staff Software Engineer at GasHawk, whose journey from minimal GUI systems to open source leadership exemplifies collaboration in action. He shares how raw, early coding experiences shaped his passion for communal development.
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What initially drew you to contributing to open source projects, and how has your involvement evolved over time?
What drew me to open source goes deeper than just contributing to code—it’s rooted in how I grew up with computers. My first real encounters with software weren’t GUI-heavy environments, but rather the raw, unfiltered world of terminal-driven, GUI-less operating systems. Early UNIX and its free/libre offspring like Linux fascinated me not just because they worked—but because I could see how they worked, even though I did not understand a thing at the time.
Back then, “open source” wasn’t even a coined term—it was just the way things were. Systems like BSD and the early Linux distros weren’t just tools; they were living proof that collaborative development on a global scale was not only possible but more resilient and innovative than most closed, commercial alternatives.
My involvement started from that ethos, however, it shifted a lot during the past 20 years. My earliest contributions are lost in time, behind mailing lists and private SVN and Bitbucket servers. GitHub changed all of that by bringing the public social aspect to coding and creating conversation within issues and pull requests. Being registered user #237133 have many stories of failed personal contributions, and it certainly takes time to properly position oneself in an ever-changing environment, but once you find balance, it becomes easy to learn, contribute to software and enjoy the social aspect of things.
How do you believe contributing to open source projects can enhance a software engineer's skill set and career prospects?
From a skills' perspective, it forces you to level up fast. You learn to write clean, maintainable, idiomatic code because strangers will read it, critique it, and depend on it. You become proficient in collaborative tools like Git, issue tracking, CI/CD, and documentation - not because a manager told you to, but because you need them to operate in the open. You’re exposed to a diversity of architectures, styles, and standards that stretch your comfort zone and expand your technical vocabulary.
But it’s not just technical. You develop soft skills that are often underestimated: asynchronous communication, receiving and giving feedback publicly, resolving conflicts constructively, and building consensus in distributed teams. That emotional intelligence, combined with technical sharpness, is pure gold in today's remote-heavy software world.
Career-wise, open source is a public resume. Every pull request, every issue comment, every thoughtful review is proof of your capabilities, mindset, and values. It builds your credibility in ways that polished LinkedIn profiles and proprietary work never can. When recruiters or potential collaborators can see your code, your thinking, and your communication style, that creates trust at scale.
In short: open source turns engineers into engineers with leverage. Leverage of skill, reputation, and opportunity. And in this industry, that’s everything, whether you feel like marketing yourself or exposing your digital hobby-place.
Solidity Challenge 🕵️♂️
What will testEncodePacked() and testEncode() return?
Solidity Challenge Answer ✅
Answer: True, True
